Payment for magazine article

[RedgateModels]

Dave,

 

I have always volunteered articles for the print mags that I have featured in, generally suggesting the article before writing it to see if it would be well received. For the loco servicing piece I did for MRL I was approached by the ed following a recommendation from Andy Y

 

Hope that helps

[Brit70053]

Dave,

 

I've only ever had one 'article' published in a magazine and that started out as a 'Letter to the Editor' of the long defunct 'Model Railway Enthusiast/ Collector' Magazine .

They replied asking if it could be published as a feature and detailed their payment scale as well as explaining the copyright situation to me. I don't know if this is common policy amongst the extant magazines now, but I found that arrangement satisfactory at the time.

 

I know some magazines print a brief guide for the submission of ideas for features/ articles, usually on the Editorial or index pages and it does generally give an outline of picture format etc. It would be best to follow this guidance if you have a particular idea for something you'd like to see published . If you don't see this in the Magazine(s) you're interested in, try a letter or e-mail of enquiry to the Magazine address(es).

 

Regards,

 

John

[Katier]

They replied asking if it could be published as a feature and detailed their payment scale as well as explaining the copyright situation to me. I don't know if this is common policy amongst the extant magazines now, but I found that arrangement satisfactory at the time. I know some magazines print a brief guide for the submission of ideas for features/ articles, usually on the Editorial or index pages and it does generally give an outline of picture format etc.

 

I suspect more often than not you do have to ask, but the key point is always agree payment amount, when and how with them at the time you agree to write the article. Similarly with photo rights, the policy as I understand it (at least for RM) is they do by default re-use rights so have the right to re-use articles as and when appropriate. (not the same as owning the copyright of course)

 

Biggest 'ballache' when starting out is, of course, having to wait for the payment (which is months as all magazines plan several editions ahead)!!

[The Stationmaster]

Just out of interest, have you chaps been asked to write something or written something and then sent it in? I'm never sure how magazines go about collecting articles for publication.

 

(On a related note, this is an area that continues to baffle me about the magazines - there's often the comment of 'we can only publish what we receive', but I've never yet seen any advice as to how to submit something for publication! I wouldn't have a clue how to go about sending in something - printed or electronic, how many words, photos required, what format for the photos, paragraph headings required, what subjects do they want or don't want, etc, etc. The whole thing seems shrouded in mystery. Would it not be beneficial to the hobby in general if it was more widely circulated as to how to contribute to the monthly magazines? After about the 5th or 6th article I wonder if my view might change, but certainly the first few I'd happily do for free for the satisfaction & joy of simply seeing something I produced in print, and I suspect there's plenty of others with the same view)

 

The difficulty is usually in getting started although i think the net has made a difference as it can showcase your work and, as redgate Models shows above, can lead to commsions. I got into writing prototype stuff by chatting to an editor and offering him an article when he came to interview me about something else for an article he was writing - my article was good enough to publish so that was that and it subsequently led to further commissions. Hence at one time I was turning out stuff regularly to a length decreed by the publisher and that helps to establish you.

 

Once folk know what you're capable of and what your knowledge bank or whatever happens to be it becomes that bit easier - the first step is getting them to know you and what you can do.

[David C]

I've had getting on for 80 articles in most magazines since the first one I wrote for the long defunct Model Railway News way back in about 1970 (as well as a couple of books). I've used the proceeds to fund my modelling over the years - and I've also made a few friends along the way. Almost everything I have written has been sent in uninvited. I've only ever been asked to write two articles in the past 40 odd years.

 

These days, I usually send in a hard copy of the text and an electronic version (on a memory stick). Photos can also be sent as hard and electronic copies, as can any diagrams.

 

What you need to remember is to think about what you are writing from the editor's point of view. The quality of the modelling has to be pretty good, as do the photographs. Your description of how to build the Penge & Balham Railway's no 13.333 may run to 20000 words, but that would be so long as to be unpublishable. Count up the number of words in articles in current copies of whatever magazine you are planning to submit your work to and confine your prose accordingly. "How to" pieces are, I was told by one editor some time ago, more welcome than layout descriptions - but that depends on the layout. A good quality one will always appear in print, but if it is unusual in some way, it will also stand a good chance. Prototype material needs to have a modelling slant.

 

Editors will usually accept every article that they receive, even if it falls well below the standard of what they normally publish (either modelling wise or textually). I guess all of them fear not having enough material to fill an issue, so they'll hang on to everything they get. One or two of my pieces which quite frankly weren't very good were published several after I sent them in. Obviously, the editor had run out of copy, ransacked his files and dusted off my deathless prose to fill a blank page or two! I'd even forgotten I'd written the things until the complimentary copy (and a cheque) dropped onto the doormat!

 

I've always been paid on publication and rarely had to wait for very much longer than a week or two after the relevant issue has appeared in Smiths. Rates vary from publisher to publisher. For the past few years, I've only ever sent my stuff to RM, purely because they are, I think, the market leader and I want my stuff to be read by as many other modellers as possible.

 

Hope the above is of interest to budding Tolstoys!

 

David C

[Katier]

Once folk know what you're capable of and what your knowledge bank or whatever happens to be it becomes that bit easier - the first step is getting them to know you and what you can do.

 

Indeed, Freelance journalism overall is a tough industry but I think it's fair to say our hobby is one of the easier areas of Freelance journalism to get into. On the flip side their budgets aren't high so they pay at the bottom end of what is typical. But then we also are getting paid for doing elements of our hobby. An article might take 20 hours to create.. but if 15 of that was you making a kit you were making anyway... only 5 hours actually go on the article.

 

More than quality.. the biggest thing though is the idea. On that subject I'm current working on my first article and the process I am taking is :-

 

1) Come up with idea.

2) Sent idea to editor.

3) Discussed idea with editor, tweaked idea, came up with final plan. At this point we also agreed rough size of my submission, the price they would pay me and rights on photographs. (Note my idea has already spawned a couple of other germs which could create further articles with the same publication)

4) create article and send things in for feedback (editor in this case is willing to spend time with me fine-tuning my work before final submission)

5) send final article by agreed deadline.

6) wait for the article to be published (there is a target edition but was told it could slip/change slightly)

7) get paid!!!

[Butler Henderson]

To answer my original query payment arrived a month after I had been told I had been paid (and only after a very short email to the editor), and a copy of the magazine finally arrived this Friday (and only seemingly after emailing their mail order dept which sparked some action "in another department")

 

Having now read the article its quite surprising that the final two paragraphs were not written by me but presumably by the editor. What I had written was an acknowlegment to people who had helped with the construction of the layout and a reference to its debut at a particular exhibition. None of which appeared in the two paragraphs and certainly was a concern to the exhibition manager.

[macgeordie]

I had a couple of articles with lots of photos taken by myself published in MR about four or five years ago and never received a penny for either of them. I now send everything to RM and always get a cheque along with a complimentary copy of the mag a couple of days after the publication date. For one of the articles published last year I used a photograph taken by a fellow club member, and they sent him a separate cheque for his photograph along with mine. Needless to say RM now always get first refusal for anything I do.

 

Ian

[RedgateModels]

I think it's fair to say that the team at MR now are very different from 5 years ago Ian I have found Ben and his crew very quick off the mark with a request for payment details.

[Xerces Fobe2]

I think it's fair to say that the team at MR now are very different from 5 years ago Ian I have found Ben and his crew very quick off the mark with a request for payment details.

 

Am I correct in thanking the MR team is pretty much the same it's just the Editor that has changed?

 

XF

[macgeordie]

Am I correct in thanking the MR team is pretty much the same it's just the Editor that has changed?

 

XF

 

When the second article was published, Ben was already the editor, but from Ian's (Redgatemodels) comments things seem to have improved since then.

 

Ian

[Xerces Fobe2]

When the second article was published, Ben was already the editor, but from Ian's (Redgatemodels) comments things seem to have improved since then.

 

Ian

 

That was my impressioon too.

 

XF