Charles Hinshaw - when is the next issue due ?

Hello

When is the next unity mag #3 due plz?

Iam sure you realize that a few people purchased the mag and have been thinking were is the next issue and when will it be delivered.

Thks

Hans

 

FYI: instead of posting like this you can always just PM him directly.

<paging Charles Hinshaw the white courtesy phone please, Charles Hinshaw>

 

Hello Higgy

Sorry about that, just i think if i PM him he may have 100's of pm's and just by pass it.

But i will PM him.

Thks

Hans

 

But posting on the forums could allow everyone to see the response.... in fact i am a bit disappointed that I am waiting 5 months for an issue... and Charles never gave us a date, just a "soon™"

 

Disappointment here as well, letting your customers wait without giving any official info is not good. I think Charles would do good by keeping his customers informed regarding the status of the upcoming issue.

 

Was there an issue 2? I only ever received 1. Look forward to the next
Cheers

 

I'm sure there's a lot of us looking forward to the new issue. Besides, someone had to ask eventually... :wink:

 

How did you find the articles. I was mulling over getting a subscription. I am assuming there will be more editions.

 

@boxy - if you never received issue two, but ordered it, PM me with the order details. It shipped quite a while ago!

@others - everyone who has a subscription or an order that includes issue three should be receiving an email from me on Friday with details.

 

Hi Charles
Done, thanks.
Boxy

 

My point being that a PM goes directly to Charles, that PM could include a "can you please let us all know something with a post on the forums". You folks seem to think that everyone reads every thread , I'm simply pointing out that's not the case and if you want to ask someone a question, asking them directly gives you the best chances of getting an answer.

 

I almost read every thread :|

 

An email was sent to all subscribers this afternoon. If you didn't receive it, it means that either it went into a spam folder or I don't have a valid email address for you.

 

No email received here, my email hasn't changed in years... :roll:

 

Thanks for the update Charles

Really appreciate itit

thks

Hans

 

I got it thanks Charles

 

Hi Charles,

Got your email thanks.

I know many people love to receive magazines as hardcopy, however the given the extra work and cost (most of which goes to the Printer and US Postal Service) involved with this delivery method I would prefer to receive as PDF.

All moneys go back into UDM, I receive them faster, have them at my fingertips, have the choice to print (rarely do) and surely allows the Editor more time to spend on the content rather than at the Printer or the Post Office.

PDF doesn't suit everyone, however if PDF can be a future delivery option I would be happy to take it.

Neil.

 

I only subscribed because it was hardcopy, but then that was before I owned an ipod touch

 

I didn´t get any mail, and I am suscribed too.

 

I got it thanks Charles

 

Well - unless my issue was lost in the mail, there still hasnt been any news on issue 3 after Charles' email to us all.

Anyone got theirs?

Charles - any news?

 

Nothing received here. But to be honest, I've pretty much given up on Charles and his magazine. I'm sure he started this project with good intentions, but it's been 8 months since the last issue was published. Kind of beyond what I'd call a "reasonable delay". :roll:

 

I STILL didn´t get any mail, and I am suscribed too.

 

This is Charles' latest post on the forum over at The Unity Artist:

http://www.theunityartist.com/forum/index.php?topic=127.msg1906#msg1906

 

He's hired designers for issue 4? What happened to issue 3? I think his subscribers are the most patient people on the planet. If my customers had to wait 8 months for delivery after paying for something they'd burn me at the stake. His excuses fall short in my opinion. What on earth could take someone 8 months to fix or correct? Jeez, give me a break. What is he doing, writing articles at one word a day? Check out the Blender Artist magazine that is assembled and published by a single person. Great magazine, comes out almost exactly once a month and it's absolutely free. I don't usually subscribe to magazines, certainly not when I can usually find all the same info on the 'net, but I did in this case as I thought it was worth it to support the "community". If I were to do it again, I wouldn't have bothered. This has been utterly ridiculous and an insult to our intelligence to expect us to buy his unending string of lame excuses.

 

Actually I didn't even get issue 2 despite contacting.
Sounds like there have been marish problems though, perhaps I'll try again.
Cheers
Boxy

 

I personally bought issue #1 and got issue #2 as the first (and so far only) of my subscription.

It's not a matter of patience. I'm thinking most subscribers actually got their subscriptions around issue 2 at the latest (about 6-8 months ago) and it's too late to ask for a chargeback.

 

Someone can search the forums and find the exact quote if they're interested, but I believe it was made clear that no guarantee was given that we would actually receive the "6 issues a year" that was mentioned. It was a gamble, and a lot of us probably took the "it's worth supporting the community" approach.

Edit:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=11653&postorder=asc&start=30

Info is to be found near the bottom of that page and on the next one. Make what you will of all of this.

 

Hi Jessy,

Thanks for the pointer, hopefully having it mentioned in a much more recent article will make it easier to find. That post and this thread will likely clarify the degree of certainty you can expect from actually getting the magazine, since the Unity Developer site is still unequivocally worded as "we ship six issues per year".

Cheers,

 

To start off, this isn't an excuse -- and I believe that anyone is justified in feeling that the magazine has been inexcusably delayed. The magazine is very fortunate to have such patient customers -- there is no disputing that.

I was able to ship issues one and two because of relatively small order quantities and through dumb luck and stubbornness, but to be honest I was naive with regards to all of the systems required to produce print and ship a magazine to subscribers around the world. It turned out that things that I didn't even know to plan for had to be addressed. Things were going well though, and I made up for that lack of planning by spending more and more time on it. It was a brute force approach to getting the magazine produced, and it wasn't sustainable. That lack of planning caught up with things on issue three and a lot of systems for having a long-term viable magazine had to be built or rebuilt. The choice was to throw in the towel completely or to figure out what was necessary to do it right and get everything fixed. This was a comprehensive effort -- it ranged from how submissions needed to be handled, to how the magazine would be printed to how it would be shipped. Where things were broken, they were fixed. Where processes were needed, they were created. There were a few false starts along the way -- I would think everything was solved only to have a printer utterly botch the job. In mid/late spring, things finally looked like they were ready to go and I switched the status on the web site to "shipping soon" and started taking orders for issue three. I was still a bit optimistic about that time table but it looks like UDM is set for what will effectively be a re-launch.

Again, nothing there is stated to be an excuse. I'm not presenting any of it in order for anyone to say "oh, then these are reasonable delays". They are, in fact, not reasonable. I understand that some customers are frustrated and upset... They have a right to be. I'm frustrated too. I've discussed how subscriptions will be handled to make up for the delay. There haven't been any refunds made, but nobody has directly contacted me making the request. If your patience has utterly expired, contact me. You've certainly been more patient with UDM than I would have ever expected already.


I recently emailed subscribers about web access to content (the exact message varied depending on the type of order you placed) The point was that it is still going to take time to get a printed magazine shipped, but that a system was finally in place for accessing content online. Issue three would be first available there. To my surprise, nearly half of the emails that I sent out bounced back. This was bad news, since access was tied to email addresses. This one system was modified and I randomly selected some users to test this new system. It has gone well and another email will be going out shortly. Obviously that isn't a reliable way for me to communicate with everyone, so you can expect a web site update too.

Moving forward, the last step in getting all of the systems in place for getting the magazine on track was finally done last week -- I've hired freelance designers and a freelance copy editor to work on the magazine starting with issue four. I saw a statement earlier in this thread along the lines of "why four and what about three?" Designers and copy editors can't get magazines shipped from a printer, labeled and mailed any faster -- it is for help with production going forward. That is to say -- design and editing for issue three was completed many months ago.

 

Thanks for the honest update, Charles. In my book, you are a stand up guy. You have my support.

 

I, unfortunately, have not received any response to any emails I have sent... Granted the last one was a LONG time ago. I did give up...

Gary

 

My main concern was that the magazine was going to fail. I am glad to hear that you have persevered, and the magazine will continue. Admittedly I have been frustrated by the delay. One major reason for that however has been a growing sense that Issue Three would never arrive.

I look forward to it.

 

Thanks for the update Charles. I await further communications.

 

Thank you Charles, glad to hear things are back on track, I look forward to it.
Boxy

 

Thank you Charles, I can wait ....

 

Charles, what if I didn't receive that email?

 

Oh, should I have received something by mail? Didn't got anything too here. Checked spam, but no, nothing. Good update, happily awaiting then issue 3!

 

Well, I guess getting a magazine up and running is not that different from creating an online multiplayer game ... there's simply a lot of stuff you can't anticipate in advance and things tend to get delayed - especially when that's your first baby of that kind and you're an indie.

I'm looking forward to issue 3 and ... to quote my favorite developer's quote: It'll be done when it's done. Actually, I think it's been done for some time ... so let's fix this to "it will be delivered when it is delivered".

And I'm pretty sure whenever it will be received it will have been worth the wait.

Btw: I just checked and did receive your e-mail (I've had a pretty busy time recently so didn't get around following up on this when I first received the message ... I even hardly remembered I even received it and it was marked "unread" which means I wanted to get back to it later).

 

Any news about issue 3?

 

Ditto. I didn't receive any e-mails about issue 3 either. Where does it stand?