
Hacker Monthly Shuts Down - quanganhdo
http://blog.hackermonthly.com/shuts-down.html
======
jacquesm
Thank you Lim Cheng Soon for all the hard work. I ran the same website for
well over a decade and I know how it feels when creativity drops away.
Consider passing the mantle to someone else to keep the publication going (if
there is any interest), I did this and I don't regret it. After an apprentice
period that person could then run it by themselves. That way your baby would
get another shot at life even if you yourself don't feel like it any more.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks Jacques!

I'm thinking of "open sourcing" Hacker Monthly. The process of making it, the
InDesign template I use (and optimized throughout the years), the resources
etc. That way, anyone can start their own "Best of HN" magazine or really, any
"Best of" magazine.

~~~
SapphireSun
Wow... I'm just sad I found out about this while it's shutting down. Those
layouts are beautiful, and a condensed version of HN is probably just what the
doctor ordered. I'm sure you'll find something inspiring to do next with
talents like this! Good luck. :)

------
SpacemanSpiff
I've been a print subscriber since May 2011 and I just wanted to say that my
monthly issue of Hacker Monthly has consistently been a wonderful experience.
The articles, the art, everything was very enjoyable. Thanks so much for
having offered this service!

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thank you so much. That meant a lot to me.

------
biot
Have you considered an "Ask HN" where you solicit someone who is passionate
about it to take over running it?

~~~
samstave
Good idea

------
Udo
I'm sorry to hear that it's closing down, hearing this for the first time. I
get why you're moving on.

Overall, I think there is still an opportunity for a "best of HN" publication,
and I would probably subscribe if it wasn't too expensive. I just think it
would have to be an entirely online-based format, _maybe_ with an optional
PDF, but certainly not something that needs a dead tree version.

~~~
duck
I've been running Hacker Newsletter
([http://hackernewsletter.com](http://hackernewsletter.com)), a weekly best of
HN, for the last 5+ years if that helps any.

That said, Lim Cheng Soon really put in some effort to make the print magazine
really nice. I'm not a magazine type person, but loved getting them as they
were really well made and a nice way to step away from a screen. I've had a
chance to work with him over the years and I know whatever he does next will
have just as much heart poured into it... I wish him the best!

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks Kale, and your kind support over the years.

And Yes everyone, Hacker Newsletter is excellent and I wholeheartedly
recommend it.

------
RBerenguel
Thanks, it was a wonderful reading experience, and I always looked forward
receiving my subscription at the beginning of each month. I was lucky to have
2 posts featured in the magazine (nums 11 and 14), and the layout, composition
and all else related to it was great.

Good luck with your next project(s)!

------
mooreds
I wod love to hear from the OP if he had explores transitioning, aka selling,
this to someone. I think there is a market for the attention of people with
money to spend, even in print magazines (especially in niche print magazines).

But maybe he explored it and didn't find any takers, or maybe he doesn't want
to deal with the hassle of such a transition.

Would be nice to know.

~~~
bearwithclaws
As other comments have pointed out, not having the subscribers list is my non-
negotiable terms if someone wants to take over. In fact, after I refunded
everyone, I'll reset my server and remove all my DB backups so I won't even
have a copy of it.

I know it doesn't make business sense for someone to buy a business without
any customers. That's why I never explore the option of selling it.

~~~
mooreds
That's an interesting choice. I'm sorry, I scanned the blog and didn't see
this mentioned. It certainly creates a higher hurdle for a sale.

I'm sure you've considered all the options, but may I ask why you didn't
choose to offer current subscribers an 'opt-in' option for being contacted by
a new publisher? That way those who were interested in continuing with a new
owner would be able to, and those who were only interested in your product
wouldn't be bothered. (Again, I wasn't able to find the blog post where you
mentioned being approached by possible owners, so if you answered this
question there, I apologize.)

But if you open source everything (as mentioned in another one of your
comments), that'd be great too.

------
kika
That's really sad. I loved the mag and it was my favourite read once a month.
Good luck, I'm sure we'll see something interesting from you in the future,
you can discard the project you've lost the passion to, but you can't discard
the passion itself :-)

------
patio11
Best of luck on the next adventure!

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks, Patrick. Now I finally have the time to get my hands on Stockfighter!

------
amelius
> Why? You might ask. The main reason is I’m not motivated anymore. To be more
> precise, I ran out of creative juices.

Perhaps now is the time to start "hacking the brain" :) Lots of good nootropic
supplements to be tried that could boost creativity :)

Of course, I'm only joking.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I wish you were not. Sadly, most of the nootropics are little more than
glorified aspirin. There's nothing even remotely resembling NZT :(.

~~~
collyw
There are a number of illegal drugs that do boost creativity. Steve Jobs
apparently like LSD.

------
jrgifford
Thank you so much! I was an ebook subscriber, and I was really sad to hear
that it was no longer going to be around. I see your comment about open
sourcing the template you have.

Will there be an archive of back issues available in press-ready PDF form?

~~~
bearwithclaws
You still buy individual issues from the website. I'm thinking of offering a
bundle of every back issues for sale.

Update: Now you can get all the back issues here [https://gum.co/hm-back-
issues](https://gum.co/hm-back-issues)

~~~
jrgifford
Thanks! Bought. :-)

------
xylon
never knew it existed until today

~~~
kqr
It had way too weak marketing. It was a top quality publication, always
interesting and with great design, and it deserved way more readers.

I myself only heard of it when one of my articles got featured in it. They
were nice enough to give me a free year of the digital subscription and it was
one of the highlights every month.

------
jayzalowitz
My friend and I just started hacker daily ([https://medium.com/hacker-
daily](https://medium.com/hacker-daily)) If you open source it we could
potentially help out whoever picks up the mantle with content.

~~~
dave2000
Hacker Daily? Keep up, grandpa! I'll be launching Hacker Hourly in about 20
minutes. Enjoy your retirement!

~~~
amorphid
Hacker Hourly? How quaint. Behold... Hacker Instant! =>
[https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

~~~
protomyth
Hacker Instant Newest!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest)

or for those who only want the comments

Hacker Instant New Comments!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments)

~~~
DrScump
How about Hacker _Future_? I want to know where Twitter stock will be in
March.

~~~
protomyth
I cannot find that url on the home page.

------
archibaldJ
Damn it looks interesting. Wish that I have known it earlier.

------
fluxic
A real shame. Hacker Monthly was a great product for the HN community and I'm
going to miss it arriving in the post every month.

With that said, I think there's still a healthy ecosystem of similar products.
There was a post on the front page about a new newsletter that sent out one
"classic" HN post a week, I think the article mentioned it was doing pretty
well. Can't remember its name though haha.

~~~
bstanfield
You're thinking of HackerCanon: [https://medium.com/swlh/best-
of-2015-pfffffffft-79d9b014f4de](https://medium.com/swlh/best-
of-2015-pfffffffft-79d9b014f4de)

------
aristus
Thank you for HM. It was the first magazine I was published in. Always admired
your creativity and drive to make it happen.

------
eneveu
Is there a way to order a bundle with printed copies of multiple back-issues?
Or do I have to buy them one-by-one on Magcloud for 9$ each?

I have the first 16 issues, which I bought all at once a few years ago, to
lower shipping costs (I live in Europe).

I really liked Hacker Monthly and I'd love to have the other issues in a
printed form :)

------
cbeach
Out of curiosity, did Hacker Monthly print articles from the web? With
permission of the source websites?

~~~
trevmckendrick
Hacker Monthly put together a physical magazine (it looked gorgeous) full of
articles from Hacker News.

(Source: he asked my permission for a post of mine that got some attention
back in 2013.)

~~~
protomyth
Must be quite the thing to have something so well done with your name on an
article in it. Those magazines look amazing.

------
guiambros
Thanks Lim for such an amazing work over the years. It was always a great
experience to receive HM on the mail every month, and read (or re-read) the
carefully selected articles.

Any plans to let old subscribers download the PDF for past issues? I should
have done it before it expired.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Yes! I'll make sure subscribers with subscription until the final issue stay
active at least for few more months. Drop me an email cheng.soon at
hackermonthly dot com and I'll reactivate your account to download the back
issues.

------
dewyatt
What a shame, I didn't know Hacker Monthly was even a thing until today. Now I
want a subscription so badly.

A magazine of HN delivered to my door would be amazing! Wish I knew about it
before, and I hope someone continues with it.

~~~
madebysquares
I echo these sentiments. Wish I had heard of it sooner.

------
cponeill
This is a bummer as I really love the idea and have bought quite a few issues.
Super well done. But I completely understand the lack of creative juices after
a while. Best of luck in your next venture.

------
mkuhn
Thank you!

------
satyajeet23
"I’m not motivated anymore. To be more precise, I ran out of creative juices.
Somewhere down the road, I don’t feel that way anymore. That’s when I know I
have to stop."

------
spoiledtechie
You should sell it instead of shutting it down. There would be someone that is
interested in buying it. Sell it and its subscriber base on flippa.com or
something.

~~~
johnchristopher
According to a July blog post and regarding what was planned back then once
the magazine had run its course :

 _Are you selling the site?

I probably received more than 50 emails about selling Hacker Monthly. My
answer is ‘No’. I’m ending it and I wanted to do it right. And, I wouldn’t be
comfortable passing the subscribers data to someone else._

------
zenlot
Are there any similar quality publications around?

------
rdl
Thanks for making this -- any ideas what you are doing next?

------
DullDeveloper
Loved the magazine, good luck with your next endeavours!

------
eecks
Pay for things and they won't get shut down.. they said

~~~
jacquesm
"I’m in the process of refunding all the subscribers who paid for the
subscription period after 2015. It will take some time as I’m doing this by
hand. If you need a refund urgently (for any reasons), drop me an email and
I’ll have it processed immediately."

Which is about as nice as it gets. On top of that, you got what you paid for
no?

This is not some kind of crucial service that holds your data or that you need
for your day-to-day life.

~~~
eecks
When a free service us shut down the mantra is normally "you should have paid
for it"

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but you see, this is not an online service, it is a publication.

You have a bit of an entitlement issue.

~~~
janpieterz
I'm not sure eecks is really being entitled, I read it more as (s)he's
referring to the often heard remark (here) about any kind of thing that shuts
down that is free: "You should have paid for it, use service xyz that is paid
and they won't shut down". It is more prevalent in the online business of
course, but happens in offline as well.

~~~
jacquesm
Whether you pay for something or not does not guarantee that it will not shut
down, it will simply change the odds that it will. Imagine if LCS would have
made hacker news monthly a free publication, he'd have had to shut it down
long ago. So in that sense paying for the service made it possible to last
this long in the first place but that does not entitle you to expect the
service to last _for ever_.

------
r0fl
Why? You might ask. The main reason is I’m not motivated anymore. To be more
precise, I ran out of creative juices.

Such a terrible excuse! Society today has this idea that they should only work
on things that are their calling or truly make them happy! Outsource some of
the boring work, grind out a few hours a week and collect your easy paycheque.
Millions of people would do anything to make such easy money instead of
slaving away at a real "boring" job for minimum wage.

What a shame on so many different levels.

~~~
douche
Eh, this person doesn't want to do it anymore. They refunded people's money
for the undelivered product. That's a pretty good way to handle it. Better
than slagging along putting out a shitty product just because you can't quit.

Time and energy is a resource just as much as money is. If your hobby project
is sapping you of more than you get out of it, there's no shame in doing
something else.

~~~
Candlebra
That's not really the point.

Give it up and give the project to someone else or sell it.

Now it's in limbo... What if someone else wants to do it? Will Lee sue? Is he
really interested in litigation now?

Who knows? It's a shame to end it like this.

~~~
icebraining
Sue based on what? Just don't literally copy the name and design, and there's
nothing to sue for.

~~~
jacquesm
He's doing one better and open sourcing all the templates, see elsewhere in
the thread.

