A forum for N scale articles -- thoughts?

[peteski]

Lost in the e-mail? I think everything I've submitted since 2009 has been via the Internet. Plus it's always a good idea for the author to contact the mag in a week to see if the article got to them. Because yes, stuff gets lost (or sent to wrong place) on the internet.

If they were submitted by email, those sound like short articles (or no photos).   In either case, lack of acknowledgment to me implies that they were never received.  There are plenty of anti-SPAM filters on the Interwebs making wrong decisions as to what is SPAM and what is the real stuff.  You still didn't mention whether the magazine acknowledged (through any means of communication) that they received the article. 

[alhoop]

One N scale specific magazine held some of my submissions  without initial acknowledgement but when contacted said
they wanted to publish them but held the articles until one manufacturer (Lattice Semiconductor) issued a
End of Life notice on one of the chips I was using.
I do like the idea N scale articles .
  I guess this applies:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11298927/Young-people-are-lost-generation-who-can-no-longer-fix-gadgets-warns-professor.html

Al

[jdcolombo]

If they were submitted by email, those sound like short articles (or no photos).   In either case, lack of acknowledgment to me implies that they were never received.  There are plenty of anti-SPAM filters on the Interwebs making wrong decisions as to what is SPAM and what is the real stuff.  You still didn't mention whether the magazine acknowledged (through any means of communication) that they received the article.

I had a very strange experience with Model Railroad Hobbyist.  I submitted an article to them last summer about doing sound in an N-scale diesel, based largely on the RS-11 tutorial that I posted here on the Railwire.   Did not hear a word for months.  Then all of a sudden I get an e-mail saying they need a couple of extra photos and a short bio for the article in a week, because it's coming out in their December issue.  I e-mailed a bunch of stuff; got no reply.  I honestly didn't know if they had gotten the material or not, but lo and behold, the article came out in the December issue (I thought it was quite well done - nice editing and photo placement by their staff).   Maybe it's just because MRH is not yet a completely professionalized publication, but that's still a weird way to do business.  I will say that the amount of work involved in doing a full-scale article is a lot.  And you have to have decent photography skills along with writing skills to make it work.  Forums like the Railwire allow us mortals to provide useful information without the associated angst (but I think that the "best of" forum already serves this function, and we don't need another one).

John C.

[Dave V]

I've given this subject some thought.  I do know some magazines are loathe to accept materials which have already gotten significant play on the web since it reduces the selling point of that content.  The flip side of that is that some layouts or subjects are better known because of their web presence, thereby potentially increasing the selling point.

All of that said, though, one really has to have an article submission in mind before one even starts.  I'm happy to post iPhone grabs here when I think I've dun good, but that's very different than taking print-quality photos at every step in a project. The photo standards very by magazine, and when I did my N Scale Magazine articles I was using a crappy point-and-click that nevertheless didn't prevent me from submitting.  Yet my current DSLR photography is still not up to MR's snuff.

Long story short, most forum projects don't readily translate to articles (although some do).  Furthermore, if the entire article ends up free here for all to see, a magazine is less apt to want to pay you for it.

Lastly, <mod_hat> we've tried to make this forum more functional and more intuitively organized, and each time we've made a change, such a chorus of whiny bellyaching completely unbecoming of grown-ups rises up as to make one want to swing a shovel indiscriminately, so that's reason enough--independent of the aforementioned--to not do it </mod_hat>.

[mark dance]

I thought this quote from Joe F over at MRH was just *too* relevant not to post.  I suspect MRH may have been reading this thread

Title: Big mistake in my opinion
Posted Wed, 2015-01-07 11:27 — joef
Embedded quote: "I've been around several different train clubs, and have yet to find one where the N scale folks weren't treated like the red-headed stepchild by the HO modelers."

This is a big mistake in my opinion. That's why I like to read the N scale magazines and why I LOVE getting N scale article submissions. Some of the most innovative things in the hobby are being done by the N scale guys.

Being scale-exclusive is a good way to miss out on some great insights."

Joe Fugate

Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2015-01-jan/publishers-musings?page=2