Help Keep the Fountain Pen Movement Going

by Tony Thomas

I watched with great interest the explosion of the fountain pen market around 2010.  It was an exciting time since flex nibs began their resurgence and it seemed like every pen lover had to have one.  Noodler’s pens and inks were riding that trend. A company called the Goulet Pen Company started in a bedroom around that time.  And an interesting vlogger from the Netherlands by the name of SBRE Brown started doing pen reviews.  

 I started “The Frugal Fountain Pen” blog in 2014 to focus on pens and accessories at the lower end of the cost scale.  It seemed like more attention was being devoted to expensive fountain pens and cheaper pens were not getting that much attention.  That trend continues.

It also seemed like not many new inexpensive fountain pens were being introduced. Fountain pen production is expensive, especially in the development stages, and most companies can’t afford to take the risk of releasing a product that may not sell.  

A few years ago, I turned my focus to fountain pen videos on YouTube with mixed success. YouTube is such a large and popular platform that it is hard to get enough visibility to build an audience. In addition, YouTube is making it much more difficult for smaller channels to produce revenue to help subsidize the costs of their productions.

Within the last few months, I read that one of the most popular YouTube channels covering fountain pens was shutting down. I enjoyed watching “The Pen Habit” since its introduction and will miss Matt Armstrong’s valuable videos and pen reviews.  He has raised the bar for YouTube fountain pen video production.  You can find his final video here:

https://youtu.be/QA5Wd8uOrZs

To help fill the void, I have decided to spend more time writing for this blog rather than concentrating on fountain pen videos.  In addition, I just completed a new book aimed directly at new fountain pen users.  It is called: “Getting Started with Fountain Pens”.  It is a very short book in the introductory price is only $.99. It will be available on Amazon for Kindle, Smashwords, Apple Books, Nook, and Kobo.  

At some point, I may even make it available at no cost as a way of giving back to the fountain pen community.  It is imperative that we stimulate interest in the hobby so that companies will continue to make investments in new products and fountain pen retailers will continue to prosper.

If you know anybody that may be interested in my new book, or if you want to support my efforts, you can find the link here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DZP8W56