I was just wondering...

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I submitted a photo following the electronic submission guidelines…

…and later in the week I submitted an idea for the MRProject series, also via email using the address listed in the magazine for that purpose.

I WONDER IF AND WHEN I CAN EXPECT A RESPONSE FROM MR?

2

I wonder, too. I would anticipate that you will get an answer in due course, just not early enough if you are checking your email or awaiting a phone call. My guess would be that you should expect an acknowledgement within days (1-15?), and that you’ll get a decision within about 10 weeks.

How’s that?

3

Without immediately pouncing on a copy of MR, if you read the fine print in there somewhere you will find some variations of these rules that generally apply to magazines or publications(pub):

1)Any item for submitted for publication becomes the property of the pub upon receipt.

  1. If they will compensate you for the item, they will then contact you for payment.

  2. The item may go into a reserve file, and they may in the future (within any length of time they deem) publish the item. See #2.

4)They may laugh, snarl, cajole, circulate around the office, cry, sniff ink from, ammuse themselves or such at your expense, and then throw it away forever. See #6.

5)The fine print somewhere will tell you something like this. Remember, they may receive 500,000 submissions pre day. The expense and time involved to respond to all could be prohibitive.That is why they will not acknowledge all submissions.Just processing the submissions is a great task.

  1. Key factor is #1. Because it becomes their property the minute they get it, they technically dont have to notify you of squat. It is now their property. As such, they don’t have to tell you anything about it. The only exception being the compensation for rights to publish.
4

When I have asked a good routine question, I have gotten an answer with in the week. I have not submitted an article, because my best stuff is not even close and my pic are worse than that. This is a very professional magazine and though they cater to amature hobbiests, they only use professional quality photos and writing and even that has to be good enough to impress readers like us.

I would not discourage you from writing and submitting, but unless you are WAY better than most of us, don’t expect much answer. Even the prosdon this forum recognise how difficult is is to be published.

5

Thanks for the replies…

That’s kinda what I figured, but I thought that even it they didn’t publish my stuff, I’d get a rejection slip or automated response or SOME acknowledgement after a standard amount of time.