Magazine Articles

[grow45]

I am thinking of writing an article on a recent flight and submitting to one of the three UK GA magazines. Any proceeds will go into the flying kitty so can anybody who has done this advise which pays the best and what the going rate is.

Thanks

grow45

[AerBabe]

The magazines usually have their own websites with a link such as "Information for authors". If it's not there, there will be a contact email address or phone number. It does very much depend on the type of article, length, photographs etc too...

[dublinpilot]

They pay you for the articles where you tell everyone about your great flying trip???

Geez...and we give them to pprune for free :O

I better get my pen out and start writing....that new plane is getting closer....i can feel it now....smell the leather seats.....oh I want a glass cockpit in it too...........better write a lot of articles, and take a lot of pics :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Seriously...best of luck with the article Grow45 :ok:

dp

[Timothy]

I have written a fair number of articles for both Pilot (longer ago) and Flyer (more recently). Some have been trip reports and others on technical matters.

The amount they pay is definitely better than a poke in the eye (I have had cheques for between £200 and £600, ISTR) the rates depending on the number of words and the number of pictures.

Obviously the mags have standards to maintain in terms of the quality of both copy and photos. They will only accept amateur digital shots for very small reproduction. If you do not provide piccies they will source them from libraries, but that obviously reduces your income.

They might also edit your copy, and you can end up saying things that you never said. Some editors will resubmit to you with alterations, some don't. The worst case was once when they editied the copy, sent it to me for approval, I highlighted a load of errors, then they printed without correcting them. But that's what happens when you are published, and you just have to live with it!

W

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

WCollins has it about right. I've written quite a few for 'Pilot' (and my last cheque was a bit more than WC's £600 ;~).

I haven't submitted anything under 'Pilot's' new regime (or anywhere else for a while for that matter), but when James Gilbert was in charge, he paid on acceptance for articles, on publication for pictures (becuase untill they lay out the pages, they don't know which pics will be used). Flyer had a reputation for paying less, paying late, and sometimes needing some propmting to pay at all.

Good quality pictures are important. If you can write, you will suffer little interferance from the editorial red pen - at least that's my experience. Except my last article, where they publishsed the second paragraph first, and the first one third (IIRC). It still made sense, but I thought it detracted from the 'flow' of the piece.

I think James was quite generous compared to others re fees (but had high standards and 'knew what he wanted'), but I don't know if that still applies at 'Pilot'.

SSD

[Genghis the Engineer]

I write for 2 out of the three, under pseudonyms mostly (if you want to try spotting Genghis, all my pseudonyms are characters from Neville Shute Novels), and also write for a collection of other aviation/engineering publications.

Expect generally around 15 pence per word - a bit more or less depending upon how much they like it, what slot it fits, and whether they use your own photos or library material (if they can save money by doing the latter they always will).

I virtually never send an article "on spec" to an editor. If I've not writen for them before, I'll always ask for contributors guidelines first, then submit a proposal - but virtually always a proposal.

There's no set guidelines on proposal layout, mine tend to be very detailed, but in general you need...

- Your name. If you use a pseudonym (not many do, but some people such as I prefer to) which one.

- Proposed topic, title, length.
- What qualifies you to write on the subject.
- A rough breakdown of what will be in the article.
- What photographic material you have or will have available to illustrate it, with indications (negative size, print size or digital image size) of the quality of it.

Most editors will come back with some discussion of the content, and some will come back and (if you're previously published but they don't know you) ask for a sample previous piece.

Once that discussion's sorted, you'll normally be given a deadline, and (if they like the idea) asked to get on with it.


It must be said that there is never a guarantee of an article being accepted, but following the approach above although I've had one or two proposals turned down (fair enough, that's what they're for), I've never had a piece rejected. Do bear in mind that very few editors these days are all that interested in articles without photographs, and most flying magazine editors are constantly bombarded with overlong articles about trips (I've heard several of them whinge about it) so this is the type of article least likely to be published - unless you are Whirly of-course who has a talent for it.


There are incidentally a few publications worth looking through, the two most useful - both of which are in WH Smiths, are "The Writers Handbook", and "The Freelance Photographers Market Handbook". Both are basically market guides, to contact details, rates, preferred approach methods, etc of the various editors.

And finally, very few magazines are prompt payers, expect typically 1-2 months after publication.

G

[Whirlybird]

Genghis, Thank you for those few kind words.:) Actually I've not had that many trip articles published, and those that have been accepted have been relatively unusual trips; it's a very competitive market. But I've been writing bits and pieces for all sorts of magazines for years, so I'll tell you what I know.

Pilot still pay on acceptance, at least in theory. For my last article I had to remind them several times, but I still got paid before publication, though since publication was nearly a year after I sent it.... Pay seems to have gone down a bit with the new editor, though I can't be sure of that. Flyer - and most other mags on any subject whatsoever - pay on publication, and it's normal to have to chase up payment.

I long ago gave up expecting to make much money out of magazine articles. It takes a lot of time to write to the standard they require - I edit and re-edit, because if I don't they will, and I probably won't like the result. As a result they rarely edit my stuff much...but that doesn't mean I get everything accepted. I'm more likely to phone and ask if they'd like an article than send in a proposal, but I've sent stuff on spec too - either way you can't be sure if it'll be accepted, but at least you'll find out if they have a year backlog of travel articles if you phone or write first.

One more thing...be very careful if anything you write could conceivably be construed as taking risks or bad airmanship or similar - someone is sure to write in and criticise you! :eek:

And after all that, good luck!

[grow45]

Thanks for the input. I'll think about putting together a synopsis and see if anybody is interested.

Wcollins - you mentioned amateur digital photos only being suitable for very small reproduction. Did you mean taken by an amateur or taken using an "amateur" snapshot type camera. The photos I have were taken with a 6mp digital camera which I had understood to be ok for reproduction. Any further info on this appreciated.

g45

[Timothy]

I have an ordinary, high street digital camera and when I am intending to publish I set it to the maximum resolution (I can't quote chapter and verse, but the resulting JPEG is about 800kB) and Flyer will not blow this up to more than about 3"x2".

Hope that helps.

W

[goatface]

May I humbly suggest that you take a good look at whats been published in the previous 18 - 24 months.

I know that the quality of Pilot since James Gilbert left, along with a few of the other publications, has been done to death on this forum, but if they're still guilty of anything, it's the quality of some of the articles they choose to publish - they're either repetitive or so technically obscure they go straight over the head of the large proportion of it's intended readership.

"My trip to there via this place and that, in my three winged clacker valve" - This is probably the biggest challenge of them all in terms of trying to create interesting reading.

You've got a very difficult job ahead, but I sincerely hope that you come up with something refreshing and inspire others to do so. :ok: