Re: Authoring an article for publishing

John Stewart wrote:
> I found authoring these several articles over the past few years to
> be quite different than writing an engineering report or a sales
> proposal. It seems that when people buy a magazine they want to be
> entertained. One needs to write in such a way that the readers
> attention is held.
>
> And there is a need to be careful as well not to offend those who
> are buying advertising space.
>
> Finally, how does one write so that the information will be
> understandable to most?
>
> All in all, it has been a learning experience for me!! There is a
> bit of money in it but by no means a living. Just satisfaction.
>
>
> Others may not agree. But these are my thoughts,
> anyway! Cheers, John Stewart

I don't imagine there is much of a living to be made writing about
electronics, unless you write college textbooks. Certainly, Joe Roberts
of Sound Practices wanted me to write free of charge, which of course I
wouldn't do.

John makes an often overlooked point about even the little techie
magazines seeking entertaining writers. One electronics hobby magazine
group was so desperate to have just one good writer that it paid me
about seven times what it paid everyone else, which still wasn't
caviare country. The owner also offered me an editorship for a salary
that would probably see him jailed in a decent country for breaking the
slave-wage laws.

If you want to make a modest sort of a buck out of writing about hi-fi,
the glossy review magazines are keen on entertaining stylists who know
a little elecronics. Note where the emphasis falls.

If you despise the hi-fi glossies (I don't, they have their place), a
more respectable income can be more respectably earned in reviewing
music of whatever genre you like. When I switched from vinyl to CD, I
reviewed classical music on record for a few years until I had a
collection of 6000 discs; syndicating those columns made me the
best-read music critic in the world and added up to respectable money.
Still, as an hourly rate it probably wouldn't light up a lawyer's eyes,
but I enjoyed it.

No journalism really pays. If you want to be a writer, what pays is
textbooks and thrillers, and pop song lyrics. If you can write
exceedingly well and want the routine of going daily to a smart office,
advertising copywriting is very highly paid. (I once hired a dyslexic
as a copywriter for the present equivalent of a half a million bucks, a
house with two pools, cars for him and his wife of course, private
schooling for his kid, etc, because I was told he was a super
copywriter. When I caught up on guy who sold me this crippled pup, I
screwed him permanently into the gutter. I also manipulated my chief
competitor into stealing the crippled pup from us...) Also highly
lucrative but more difficult to get your foot in the door: creating
characters and situations for TV serials (writing the actual episodes
is hard and very frustrating work). I've worked in the theatre but most
of the good guys (writers, producers and directors) in staged drama
drift rather quickly into television and films. In both of those I
found it more lucrative and interesting to be elsewhere (1): television
skills pay better in advertising and music videos, and being in
management in films is much more exciting (if also more wearing) than
being a screenwriter or script editor. One well-paid and very
satisfying sort of work for politically committed or very mercenary
writers is to be advisors and speechwriters to pols, and of course
ghostwriting books for pols is very lucrative work.

The problem with writing for hobbyist magazines is that so many people
think they have a right to tell you what to say and how to say it. The
newspapers and magazines I generally write for can afford to ignore
readers who want to pick nits but niche market and hobby magazines
can't afford to ignore one subscriber or one mickey mouse advertiser.
The more you're paid for journalism, the more immune you are to such
pressures; that has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of what you
write but with the size and wealth of the media you write for.

Still and all, the key thing about being able to write well is that it
takes you to interesting places and carries you into interesting
situations and introduces you to interesting people, and when all of
that palls, you can write novels in some agreeable place...

Andre Jute
Literate, very

(1) Also more pleasing to be elsewhere; in particular, not to be in the
same place as the exceedingly tiresome inferiority complexes and petty
dramas of the actors.

.

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