I never seen MRR mention whats on the fourms in the magazine
with some of the photos and intersting coment’s why not use us?
or have a top post or something
we know theres room in the magazine
K
In a word: Quality.
In the pre-internet days, it was somewhat easier for an average joe to get published because MR was not competing with the internet. Nowadays, they have to make sure that what they print is better than anything viewable online - otherwise who will want to spend money on the magazine?
wouldn’t some of the threads here have some interest
K
At the risk of sounding cynical, probably not.
A good amount of what is out here is far from publication-ready. That means someone would have to edit it. That may sound easy, but it is no small chore. Before that, though, somebody would have to sift through to find any thread that might be a candidate. The question very quickly would become whether or not it is worth the effort.
It would probably be more effective for somebody at MRR to sift through to see if anybody who posts on this board is a potential writer and then contact them directly.
hmmm…
I’m sure they use us for ideas once in awhile. I’ve noticed that we might have a good discussion about something and 4 months later it pops up in the magazine. This same topic was discussed awhile ago.
the emailed monthly newsletter has links to 3 or 4 threads every month , it’s not in the magazine but we do get noticed by someone [:)]
I have to echo budliners original concerns.
One of my favorite MR sections is Trackside Photos. It used to be in the first half of the magazine and run for several pages. Now it is in the back and is usually only one or two pages (often used to “hawk” upcoming Kalmbach products) And instead of the photos showing the diveresity of the hobby, the pictures are generally provided by “the usual suspects” Lou Sassi, Paul Dolkos, etc.
I used to think that this was due to a lack of acceptable layouts, or a decline in the quality of model railroad craftsmanship, but the pictures and writing that appear regularly in this forums easily “bust” that myth.
Now, I understand that a magazine of MR’s longevity and reputation needs to maintain standards and I may be just an “armchair editor”, but I could fill several pages of Trackside Photos each month with quality pictures of “unknown” layouts by “unknown” builders just from what I see in these forums.
-George
Uhm, the reason these guys’ names are on a lot of the photos is because they’re what amounts to roving photographers who take pictures of people’s layouts for MR. It’s NOT those guy’s layouts we’re seeing, it’s that they took the photo of Joe Blow or John Doe’s layout for the magazine.
There’s nothing wrong with having some “contributing photographers” on your staff who have shown they can take decent photos of people’s layouts, is there?
Dear MR readers,
It looks like I should clarify a few things that have come up in this thread.
One is the idea that we can get content from the forums. Actually, as Mark noted, pulling content from the forums would require reading thousands of threads. That’s not possible. We are, however, happy to read proposals for stories, as noted in the thread that’s always at the top of the forum:
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/870084/ShowPost.aspx
Another thing to note is that there’s a world of difference between photos that look good on a screen and photos we can use. We run photos at 300 dpi (not 72 dpi) and we strongly prefer RAW images (or slides - remember them?). Our digital photo guidelines are here:
http://www.kalmbach.com/kpc/objects/pdf/digital-image-submission.pdf
The move of Trackside Photos to the back of the magazine about 3 years ago had no significance other than that we wanted to have some good photos at the back of the magazine. (It was a little text-heavy back there.) The popularity of the department didn’t change with the move.
Finally, regarding the stories and photos we run: We can’t buy a story if the author doesn’t send it. If you (or one of your buddies) have a great layout or great how-to technique, propose a story. That’s how guys like Lou Sassi, Paul Dolkos, Lionel Strang, Pelle Soeborg, and Joe Fugate (and, for that matter, yours truly) got started. We’re always looking for our next author, and we pay as soon as we accept your story for publication. We can’t buy everything we review, but your chances are infinitely better if you submit a manuscript than if you don’t.
Thanks for reading MR, and best wishes.
Terry Thompson
Another reason is probably the lead time for publishing the magazine. Other than the Coffee Shop and the Beer Barn most topics fall to the back after a few days. The magazine usually has a lead time of a couple of months so by the time the magazine is shipped, the topic is probably on page 352.
Tom