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what type of magazine articles would interest you that you rarely see?

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, June 4, 2021 8:23 AM

gregc

again, some advice/feedback from the editor would be helpful. 

One hesitation that any of us would have in writing an article is the resulting failure to have it published. I know that Steven Otte pointed out that if you don't succeed the first time, try again, but time spent is time wasted if the article doesn't get published. So, it would be essential to get some form of pre-approval from the editor that the proposed article would be published, or not, and under what circumstances.

Rich

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Posted by CGW103 on Friday, June 4, 2021 8:32 AM

gregc

 

 
NorthBrit
I can fill everything in until it comes to photographs.

 

not sure sophisticated equipment is needed.

from my experience (frustration) and from what i'm told, one thing is to get as much light on the area as possible.  those white reflectors or multiple lamps minimize shadows.

the other thing is a camera stand and short delay

fortunately with digital cameras there can be relatively quick feedback looking at an image on a large screen to learn from.

one reason John Allen's layout and articles stood out is because he was a professional photographer

 

again, some advice/feedback from the editor would be helpful.

 

gregc

 

 
NorthBrit
I can fill everything in until it comes to photographs.

 

not sure sophisticated equipment is needed.

My son and his wife are both professional photogaphers. It is not so much the equipment as it it there eye. We have all taken photos of the same scene either one of thier photos looks a lot better than mine. My son is a lighting expert. He has talked at lenght about lighting my layout. But again he has the eye for it and has studied on it. If you have the talent it will show, if you dont you can improve your pics but not to a pro level. That is why they make a good living at it.

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Posted by Overmod on Friday, June 4, 2021 8:35 AM

Editors can't tell whether an article is 'publication quality' until they read it.  But they can surely read an outline, determine if it suits their perception of a proper article, abd comment on what they think needs to be changed or added.  That can cut waaaay down on the time spent initially 'pitching' an article idea, or can give a would-be writer early guidance on what the magazine most wants to see.

If photos are not 'full quality' for magazine reproduction, rather than reject the article solely for that reason, a good editor will request images in proper format.

I recall there being both a 'stylebook' for material to be submitted to Kalmbach and a guide for photographs -- that would likely have been in the pre-digital era.  Perhaps Mr. Otte can put together a sticky on best practices for submitting ideas or articles, and on the correct format(s) for images that make it easiest on the magazine's editorial staff and compositors.

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Posted by Steven Otte on Friday, June 4, 2021 8:54 AM

I feel I have already answered every question asked here. I'm not sure what more advice and guidance you want. I'm an editor. My expertise and my job are to turn poor prose into publishable prose. I am not a freshman composition teacher. I can't tell you how to be a good writer. But I can tell you how to be a writer: Write something. Write something and then we can talk about what you have written. I joined in this thread to encourage somebody to write an article for us. It doesn't have to be you. I'm not here to hold your hand and turn you specifically into a writer. If you don't have the self-confidence to write something, I can't help you. 

And beyond confirming that your story idea is the kind of topic we would publish, we're not going to give you pre-approval for your story. We can do a lot with poor writing. We can do a little with poor photography. We can do nothing with poor modeling. We aren't going to be able to tell you we will accept an article until we have the article in hand. Sorry, but we aren't alone in this; that's the way publishing works. You write, you get rejected, you write something else, you repeat until you get published. 

You will learn nothing from asking me for yet more guidance. There's only one way to be a writer. Write.

--
Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editor
sotte@kalmbach.com

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Posted by MJ4562 on Friday, June 4, 2021 9:03 AM

Articles on rail-served industries and sections of prototype railroads that offer good potential to model.  I know I enjoy those types of articles and it seems like Jeff Wilson's books are popular.   RMC used to do whole series of articles on different model relevant industries.  The reason I enjoy models and model railroads is that I enjoy seeing the real world shrunk down into hand held size.

 

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Posted by richhotrain on Friday, June 4, 2021 9:14 AM

I have no quarrel with anything that Steven Otte said. From my own personal experience with writing articles for my other hobbies, I had one published and one rejected. It's a gamble.

The risk is that the article may be rejected for one or more of a host of reasons, not all to do with the quality of the article or the photos. So, you need to be highly motivate to succeed, and you need a large ego, or at least not be thin skinned about rejection.

Rich

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Posted by Steven Otte on Friday, June 4, 2021 9:21 AM

Doughless

I sincerely believe that many folks are held back from contributing a magazine quality article....in their minds.... by the quality of the photography needed to pass muster with such a visually oriented magazine.

I-phone photos good enough?  Do editors enhance and crop them as needed?  Lighting?  What is good lighting?

Many simply don't have many photogtaphy skills beyond taking the standard family snap shot.

Phone cameras are getting better and better all the time. While it's possible to take a good layout photo with a cell phone, it actually takes more expertise than it does to take one with a decent camera. Lighting has to be better, and you have to use focal-stacking software to composite photos for depth of field. But it can be done.

Though photos for a layout visit article have to be of higher resolution, sharpness, and depth of field than most cell phone cameras can shoot, cell phone photos are often perfectly adequate for how-to articles and the like, where photos are published smaller. 

If you don't know if you and your camera/cell phone are good enough to take a publishable photo, submit to Trackside Photos. If your photography is good enough for Trackside, it's good enough for a layout visit article. And if it's not good enough, I will be glad to tell you how to improve it. I've done this so many times I have a draft e-mail saved; all I have to do is pick the relevant paragraphs and hit "send." I also have a PDF that tells you our technical requirements. E-mail me and ask. 

The race goes to the swift; the battle goes to the strong. The publishing game goes to the persistent. Or, to steal another sports metaphor: You miss every shot you don't take.

--
Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editor
sotte@kalmbach.com

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Posted by York1 on Friday, June 4, 2021 9:24 AM

Steven Otte, your advice reminds me of the many stories about people who had their work rejected 18 or 20 times by various publishers, but kept at and became best-selling authors.

I don't think I have that drive to write and publish.

York1 John       

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Posted by ROBERT PETRICK on Friday, June 4, 2021 9:45 AM

Steven Otte

The race goes to the swift; the battle goes to the strong. The publishing game goes to the persistent. Or, to steal another sports metaphor: You miss every shot you don't take.

 
And Gretzky never worried about shots being too low.

LINK to SNSR Blog


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Posted by dstarr on Friday, June 4, 2021 10:00 AM

You can get excellent photographs with just a low end point-n-shoot camera. All it needs is a lot of zoom in the zoom lens and a way to set the smallest f-stop and use a long exposure.  The small f-stop improves your depth of field.  Then you need a tripod to hold the camera absolutely steady.  I have two, a regular stand-on-the-floor model and a very short (6 inch) one that can stand on the layout.  For best steadiness use the camera's self timer to trigger the shutter hands-off.  Then you need plenty of light.  Be careful to avoid double shadows, caused by using two lamps.  Instead aim one lamp up at the white ceiling to get an overall shadowless light.  Digital camera's can correct the color from fluorescent lamps and incandesent lamps.  If you use both type of lamp in the same shot, the camera may not be able to cope.

  Composition of your photos is everything.  You want to avoid background objects like phone poles from sticking up behind your rolling stock photos.  Sometimes you want to go closeup on rolling stock photos to show small details.  Most of the time you want to back off a bit, to show some of the surrounding layout.  The rolling stock is more interesting when it is going thru a nicely scenicked layout with some people, some structures, the track, some ballast.  Take a lot of photos (electrons are free) and submit the best ones.  If you are taking layout shots for a layout tour kind of article be sure to have trains in all the pictures, no just deserted rails. 

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Posted by Doughless on Friday, June 4, 2021 11:07 AM

dstarr

You can get excellent photographs with just a low end point-n-shoot camera. All it needs is a lot of zoom in the zoom lens and a way to set the smallest f-stop and use a long exposure.  The small f-stop improves your depth of field.  Then you need a tripod to hold the camera absolutely steady.  I have two, a regular stand-on-the-floor model and a very short (6 inch) one that can stand on the layout.  For best steadiness use the camera's self timer to trigger the shutter hands-off.  Then you need plenty of light.  Be careful to avoid double shadows, caused by using two lamps.  Instead aim one lamp up at the white ceiling to get an overall shadowless light.  Digital camera's can correct the color from fluorescent lamps and incandesent lamps.  If you use both type of lamp in the same shot, the camera may not be able to cope.

  Composition of your photos is everything.  You want to avoid background objects like phone poles from sticking up behind your rolling stock photos.  Sometimes you want to go closeup on rolling stock photos to show small details.  Most of the time you want to back off a bit, to show some of the surrounding layout.  The rolling stock is more interesting when it is going thru a nicely scenicked layout with some people, some structures, the track, some ballast.  Take a lot of photos (electrons are free) and submit the best ones.  If you are taking layout shots for a layout tour kind of article be sure to have trains in all the pictures, no just deserted rails. 

 

I will have to explore these technical terms in more detail.  I have been thinking about contributing to the photography themed threads anyway.  Its been a matter of breaking the inertia.

Speaking of phone poles.  I once did the railfanning thing.  Took pics of my favorite shortline. 

Got all set up ahead of time, picked out the spot and the angle, thought about sun glare, other stuff; waited patiently for the train to take forever to get there, and clicked when it got there.

Took out the pic and noticed a big telephone poll IN FRONT of the tracks, between me and the loco.  Completely ruined the pic (which would have been very good, BTW).  Didn't even notice it all that time I was preparing.

I was so embarrassed for myself I said nothing,  packed the camera away, put my tail between my legs and immediately drove home.

 

- Douglas

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Posted by maxman on Friday, June 4, 2021 11:07 AM

I'd bet that someone would be interested in an article about easy and simple to make operating rotary couplers in HO scale. 

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Posted by Doughless on Friday, June 4, 2021 11:13 AM

Well, how about an article on model railroad photography.  I'm sure its been done before, but maybe not up to date for I-phones and other advances.

- Douglas

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Posted by doctorwayne on Friday, June 4, 2021 11:30 AM

It had been suggested, in RMC, that if you wanted to submit photos for publication in that magazine, you would likely fare better if the photos were in RAW format, rather than as JPEGs.

The reason that RAW is preferred is that it offers more options to manipulate to get the best version of each photo, depending on what medium is used to present it. 

I had recently been given a camera which included the RAW feature, so I took a number of layout photos, then put them on a disc and submitted them to RMC.  I also included a return mailer, with postage, should the disc be not acceptable.

I did receive a reply, indicating that the disc had been reviewed and that the photos were well-done and useable.  However, I had not included captions with the photos, as I merely wanted to know if the photos would be of use (I thought the photos to be okay, but felt that I could do better.  The submission was more-or-less a feeler to determine if it would be worthwhile to make a more complete contribution.)

Shortly after that, the original RMC folded, and was then acquired by White River Productions. 
I never heard from anyone again, so that disc may still be floating around somewhere, perhaps with somebody wondering "What the heck is this and who the heck is it from?"

Probably a case of poor timing on my part.

Wayne

 

 

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Posted by Lazers on Friday, June 4, 2021 4:03 PM

 

"It's the South Shore Line, Jim - but not as we know it".

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Posted by Steven Otte on Friday, June 4, 2021 4:23 PM

Doughless

Well, how about an article on model railroad photography.  I'm sure its been done before, but maybe not up to date for I-phones and other advances.

Pelle Søeborg did: "Shoot photos like this with an iPhone," November 2017, page 42. That same issue also featured Paul Dolkos' article "Take your best shot," making it an all around good issue for prospective layout photographers to look up.

--
Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editor
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Posted by groundeffects on Friday, June 4, 2021 6:21 PM

I have to say this has been a really informative topic, especially with the responses  from editor Mr. Otte.  These responses really go beyond the "contributor guidelines" found elsewhere in the MR website. 

Myself, I'm considering submitting an article, however I am still working on the query letter itself and how I can best deliver on the topic.  

Jeff B

 

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Posted by gregc on Saturday, June 5, 2021 5:32 AM

these guidelines say to send a manuscript and photographs to an address in the mail.   should that webpage be updated?

can an article be sent/linked electronically using email?   what is the preferred format?    

those guidelines also mention an acknowledgement w/in 60 days

We’ll send you a card acknowledging receipt of your article, and our goal is to review it and contact you no later than 60 days from the receipt of the article.

is this still correct?

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Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, June 5, 2021 5:55 AM

greg, that link was last updated in October 2020, so I assume it is still current.

The information in the link states that the articles and photos are to be mailed (postal mail) and are not to be emailed.

Rich

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, June 5, 2021 8:02 AM

richhotrain
The information in the link states that the articles and photos are to be mailed (postal mail) and are not to be emailed.

This is more a concern over addressing shortcomings of email, I think, than a reluctance to receive the required digital format 'electronically' -- it also simplifies keeping track of the files, since the media sent by mail are hard-labeled and accompanied by human-readable printout.  Note that there is a way to send the images electronically (as FTP, of all things!) upon request.

Note the very clear instruction, somewhat different from the advice given by Mr. Otte above, to ask before you write:

Before you submit any article, please write us a short letter (MODEL RAILROADER, 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612) or email us (mrmag@mrmag.com) your inquiry describing what you want to do. We can then tell you if it fits our needs; this may save you from working on something we won’t be able to use.
For those asking about photography practices, the guidelines also contain a link to Brooks Stover's "Model Railroader's Guide to Digital Photography":

https://www.trains.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/MODELERSGUIDETODIGITALPHOTOGRAPHY1-1.pdf

 

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Posted by gregc on Saturday, June 5, 2021 9:27 AM

would hardcopy of a pdf be accepatble and they extract text and images from the paper copy?

would photos need to be printed on photo quality paper and they would scan them

??

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Posted by York1 on Saturday, June 5, 2021 9:31 AM

Mike is correct.  Mailing a hard copy is a protection for both the writer and the magazine.  Lots of articles and information can be electronically 'faked' but can be proven by postmarks and post office receipts.

York1 John       

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Posted by doctorwayne on Saturday, June 5, 2021 11:03 AM

gregc
would photos need to be printed on photo quality paper and they would scan them

I doubt that a printed photo would be of much use. 

When I submitted that article to Paintshop I included several slides (positives) of the locos, but was asked to submit ones with better lighting, which I did.

Nowadays, the preferred method might be to submit photos on a disc or a memory stick, preferably taken in RAW format.

That allows the printers to manipulate the photos in a variety of ways that will yield the very best views of the subject, including colours, focus, and clarity.  I think that will also permit removal of anomalies or distractions not pertinent to the subject at-hand.

Wayne

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, June 5, 2021 11:11 AM

gregc
Would hardcopy of a pdf be acceptable and they extract text and images from the paper copy?

No.  They want it as a word-processing file, and specify Microsoft Word format (although they don't say which of the sometimes incompatible versions of "Word" format they want or expect).  Clarification here (and revision of the guidelines appropriately) might be a good thing.

Personally, I've used Rich Text Format (set as a default in the versions of Word I have used over the years) to be certain that people with other kinds of word processor can open and read the files I send them.  I would like to see whether this is an acceptable practice for the magazine now.

It does not matter whether a PDF or some other file was the source of printed output to be 'scanned'; the OCR works by recognizing the letterforms/font/typeface and extracting ASCII character data, which can then be put into some electronic document format. 

In order to recover text from a PDF some additional editing steps have to be taken, some of which involve Adobe security -- this is probably a major reason the MR editors don't want text sent in PDF format even though it has become something of a 'standard' for document exchange between different types of computer system.  It might be interesting, though, to read MR's own reasoning on why this format is not 'supported' -- or what conventions would have to be followed if they were to come to support submissions sent as PDFs.

Would photos need to be printed on photo quality paper and they would scan them?

I see the point, but that's extra hassle and time for their staff, and would almost certainly involve additional processing steps in the scanned file to make it suitable for printing.  Best to send the photos in requested form and resolution, with hardcopies only for identification.

Personally, I see value in putting caption text together with the 'proofing' copy of the picture something relatively easy to do in a word-processing program.  That copy, although essential to send for the reasons so far noted, doesn't even need to be better than a cheap inkjet print on letter paper or even a B&W laser job -- it identifies the higher-resolution image files on disk or FTP'd, both by name and by context.

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Posted by gregc on Saturday, June 5, 2021 11:37 AM

may be more convenient to

  • "mail" them (with postmark) a hardcopy of the article and
  • email the article contents in some digital form that the magazine can easily process

not encouraging

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Posted by York1 on Saturday, June 5, 2021 1:42 PM

I would guess publishers are in the same boat as music producers.

There have been several big lawsuits over music copyrights, where a composer submits a song which is then produced by the music company.  Then they find out that the song or one very similar was written years earlier by someone else.

Your protection is that by mailing the article and some photos, you can prove that you wrote and submitted the article on a certain date.  Someone cannot come along later and claim you copied their work, unless they have some form of written proof that came earlier than your postmarks.  If they claim they have their work on a computer file, they cannot prove that the dates were not electronically manipulated.  If their work is written, without a postmark or official receipt from the post office, they may not be able to prove theirs came before yours.

As far as photos, I would imagine that if the publisher wants to use them, they would then ask you to submit the original photos electronically.

Of course, everything I'm saying is from me, a layman.  It's possible I'm completely wrong.  (Ask my wife.)

Mike the lawyer, or other lawyers on this forum, could tell us the actual information.

York1 John       

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Saturday, June 5, 2021 1:48 PM

gregc

may be more convenient to

  • "mail" them (with postmark) a hardcopy of the article and
  • email the article contents in some digital form that the magazine can easily process

not encouraging

 

Why exactly is it not encouraging?

Why would it be so hard to send them a simple plain paper printed copy, photos and all, and also provide a flash drive with electronic versions?

Seems to make sense to me.

But, then again I'm the guy who still has 2,000 print copies of model train magazines, 1700 vinyl records, 800 music CD's and 400 or so "books".

Sheldon

    

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Posted by gregc on Saturday, June 5, 2021 2:16 PM

York1
Mike the lawyer, or other lawyers on this forum, could tell us the actual information.

i don't believe it's the same for all (modeling) magazines

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Posted by gregc on Saturday, June 5, 2021 2:20 PM

on the topic of the title, Joe F recently commented on what he believes readers want

i'm surprised that he said DCC and wiring tricks as #2

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Posted by maxman on Saturday, June 5, 2021 2:48 PM

Why all this swimming against the current stuff?  Seems to me Mr. Otte was pretty clear as to acceptable forms of article submittal and so forth.

If someone really has an article they'd like to submit, get off the pot and do so.  All the rest of the complaining appears to either be a waste of time, or a method of compiling a list of excuses to justify not writing an article.

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