Has anyone had any experience with MR article submission inquiries via email? I sent an email well over a month ago to mrmag@mrmag.com and followed it up recently. Still no reply. Maybe I am just being impatient.
At the top of this page, in the black strip, click on "The Magazine", then click on "Contact Us". Scroll down to the third link "Contributor Guidelines", where it will tell you the requirements for submitting an article.
Wayne
I know about the submission requirements. I just want to know if there is any interest in the subject matter before I spend time putting together an article.
From what I just read in the Guidelines thing, it seems you have to submit your idea, the way they ask, and see if it flies.
From what I've understood, from some of Steve O's post on the subject, it's not used right away, it's put in a file for future articles.
Mike.
My You Tube
nycmodel I know about the submission requirements. I just want to know if there is any interest in the subject matter before I spend time putting together an article.
I hope this doesn't sound too cold . . .
Is the subject interesting enough to you that you would want to write an article even if nobody else ever read it?
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
Not at all Robert. In fact, my original thought was to post it in the Electronics and DCC forum. If people were interested, fine. If not, no problem. Indeed I put together a forum piece in detail from the beginning but decided to hold off in case it had the potential to be a feature article. It's about an Arduino application and yes, there have been a few in MR over the recent years. Just wanted to see if it flies. If there is no interest from MR I will post it on the forum.
Hey Wayne,
Okay, good. Then I would say write the article. Full bore. Write it as if the deadline was next Tuesday.
Include photos, sketches, charts, graphs, whatever. Format it to look like an actual published article. Even simple modern word processing software these days, such as MSWord, allows amateurs to present stuff in interesting and informative ways. But don't worry too much on that account. If the content is interesting and the narrative is clear, there are editors who can take your stuff and whip it into shape. The thing is . . . editors do not want to write your story for you.
Then, contact MRR and inform them that you have an article ready for publishing. Contact other magazines and publications. There are many venues available to you. The net is starved for content.
If you get no response in a reasonable amount of time, consider self-publication: on a blog, on a forum, on an HP printer and given out to your friends and family. Writers gotta write. Can you imagine what the world would be like if Walt Whitman had a blog?
Good luck.
Even if you have the best article in the world, one that will revolutionize model railroading, DO NOT OFFER IT TO MORE THAN ONE PUBLICATION at a time. Decide which magazine, print or online, is best for your story, and send it to them. If they say "it does not meet our current requirements," say thank you and send it somewhere else.
Why not offer it to more than one publication? Magazines often take a long time to even respond to an inquiry. Neither side, the magazine nor the author, "owe" each other anything. The magazine is not obligated to even reply to an article inquiry (although it would be polite for them to at least say, "no thank you"). And an author is not obligated if a magazine says they are interested, but the author has in the mean time decided to give the article to somebody else.
Note: This is for an INQUIRY only, asking if the magazine is even interested in the topic, perhaps with a few photos to show them that you really have the goods. But once they say they are actually interested and you send the article to them, THEN I agree, it would be the height of professional DIScourtesy to send it to multiple publications, only to turn some of them down if they accept it. After all, you have have now wasted their time reviewing your work.
ROBERT PETRICKIs the subject interesting enough to you that you would want to write an article even if nobody else ever read it? Robert
Robert,I have skipped over many articles in the 65 years I been reading MR because they was of no interest to me.
That doesn't mean the article wasn't of interest to others.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Magazines are very picky about their article submissions. They heavily emphasize that the article is completely unique. They will not publish anything that has been in another magazine, even if it is the best article every written.
My grandfather is currently building a layout with a few friends and they want the layout to get in the magazines once it is mostly complete, so they are very careful NOT to shared anything about the layout. They want the first time it’s published to be the VERY first time it is published so the magazine that publishes it will have an exclusive on the layout at the time. Only after the magazine publishes the layout (or says we done want this article) will they give it to other magazines or publish it online.
When I was working on this layout last summer a fellow working with us told a story about a publisher he knew who was forced to completely reprint his magazine because his big article for that issue was published by a competing magazine that had a slightly earlier press date, and he needed his magazine to be unique!
So DO NOT sent the same article to two magazines at once. You need the articles to be completely unique for the magazine to consider publishing them! So don’t compromise your chances of being published by submitting an article twice!
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
Having had three publications in different scholarly places, I concur with others about getting the article published in one place first. If you get rejected, move to the next one. This way you don't burn bridges.
Instead of writing a full article, I always sent the prospective publisher an outline and justification paragraph. You get their buy-in early and save yourself time from writing a lengthy manuscript that gets eventually rejected.
To generate interest from MR, why not send a PM to Mr. Ott and other MR folks?
mmagliaroWhy not offer it to more than one publication?
Why the sudden revival of a March, 2018, topic?
I would find it more interesting to know what the OP ended up doing.
I was approached by a British MRR magazine about how I did something that they saw on this forum. They asked if they could publish it in their magazine. I said sure go-ahead and cleaned up the writing and sent them additional photos.
Quite a long time had passed (maybe15 months) before they said it was going to be published in a certain month and said they paid 100 pounds for an article of the length I had let them use. I told them to just donate the money to the local homeless shelter which they did and E-Mailed the letter thanking them for the donation.
All in all, there was that article and over time 3 three others that went in the "tips" section of the magazine. Every one of them had been picked up off the internet by them and after a scholarly re-write used in the magazine.
I didn't even buy a copy of it when it was published, my sister did and I saw it at her house one day.
The way I look at submitting articles is I do it to help the hobby not make a fortune. If you get a few bucks out of the deal so be it. Spread the word on a good idea and you never know what will happen.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Prospective authors need to be very clear about the difference between a proposal, and an article.
The first is a statement of intent, maybe two lead paragraphs and a picture or two to demonstrate competence with a camera. It should not be a publishable package.
The second is the full megilla -- text, photos, captions, sidebars, bibliography etc.
Sending multiple proposals is OK. If you get multiple acceptances, pick your publisher and send only one article.
Among model railroading publications, photo quality and variety is very important. Editors can clean up text to their standards, but are rarely in position to re-shoot problematic photos.
.
Because then you could have the disaster of the same article being in two different model railroading magazines. I know it happened once before when Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman printed the same material.
Shortly after that, both magazines ran editorials explaining why authors should never submit to two magazines.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I am the original poster. I went ahead at the time and posted the project in this forum's Electronics section.
Sorry, I should have included a link to the forum article.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/t/269675.aspx