No comment on articles, well, I’ve got a few.............!
Whilst not expecting the great unwashed masses on FM to genuflect and prostrate themselves to my every utterance, do (did) I not at least have the right to know how my offering has been received?
Just the warm glow of satisfaction to see my written words up on the website is reward in itself – right? Well, consider that the (allegedly) entertaining pieces I wrote have to be dreamt up from scratch. They did not have a base of ‘I went there’ or I did this’ for me to work on. Normally I would have two or three ‘bits’ of ideas that need filling out to the normal 800-1000 words.
On average, from start to finish, I would say 2-3 hours per piece. That was almost one offering every week for well over seven years. And all for free, of course, although apparently that’s not always the way...........
Originally Posted by Steve Pope: You write an article because you want to, you think you might have something interesting to say and you do your best to make it enjoyable.
And if you are able to do it regularly enough it can help pay a few bills in some cases!
Well, good for you if you can, and if we take the mercenary position, your reward comes in hard cash. If an editor has paid you for your work, what the readers make of it is immaterial, to a degree. But, let me tell you I recently submitted a Xmas story to the editor of a weekly angling publication. The editor told me it was a great story and really well written, but wasn’t sure it would ‘fit’ into a news driven publication such as his.
Stupidly I had thought that their ‘Xmas Special’ edition might benefit from a ‘Xmas Story’ being as most of the country was frozen solid and there wouldn’t be a lot of fishing news to comment on. Oh, and I also offered to have some professional artwork done to illustrate the article, but to no avail. There wasn’t enough room for my piece amongst all the adverts that ‘special’ week.....
If you are contemplating writing for the legitimate angling press, make sure you piece exactly fits into their template, or you won’t have a chance. How do you find out what this template is, I hear you ask. Well, just buy a copy of the publication, or pop into your local dentist or doctor’s waiting room and swipe a six year old copy, because by and large, the content won’t have changed at all in that time.
Just to remark on those who say they have read many articles in magazines or books and have never thought to comment, by buying that magazine or book have you not, to some extent, already accepted the contents contained within?
Books and magazines are not interactive in the way the internet is. If you take the trouble to write to the author of publisher of a book, what will happen to your comment? You may/may not even get a reply, and whatever happens, you can be sure your comments will not be published in the next edition of that book.
If you write to the editor of a magazine/paper, you may/may not get your comment published in the letters page (if they have one) next week/month. Now, without the original piece to refer back to, and several weeks/a month later, the impact of your comment will be considerably lessened.
But, and it’s a big fat but, you first have to get your comment past the editor. Bear in mind that if the editor has paid a contributor for his /her article any adverse comments on that article could be seen as an adverse comment on the editor’s judgement. And the likelihood of any editor offering up a stick for his readers to beat him with would be.......
Back to the internet - Originally posted by Fred Bonney: I know Kevin Perkins was regularly disappointed with the lack of response too.
Fred’s right with this. On one level, because I felt I was writing for my peers and I was desperate for direction, and in truth, encouragement. Because it was all new to me and I hadn’t (still don’t) really got an idea as to what I was doing.
Having your ‘baby’ posted up on the front page of FM and sent off into cyber world without any idea of how it is being received is a little bit deflating, to say the least. And whilst I take onboard the comments that writing the piece is reward in itself, without any interaction between reader and writer it feels like chucking your words into a void at times. A ‘hit’ counter to at least show that people had looked at your offering would have/still would be a great comfort.
Now, back in the bad old days of FM, at least all the regular contributors had their own archive. You could easily catch up on ‘Wintle’s World’ or if you were really desperate the ‘Alternative Angler’. And that would be all of the offerings that the contributors had put forward.
Still, that was then, and this is now. Apart from that, I’ve got nothing else to say........