Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with publication

How to Submit Query to Magazine?

goalyeehah — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:44:21 -0800

How does one submit a professional query to a national magazine? I am a yoga teacher looking to submit some pieces to Yoga Journal for possible publication. I have never submitted a query before. What does this consist of and what is the best way to approach it?

Publish or perish?

angiep — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:41:06 -0800

How often are academics expected to publish? I realize that the discipline and the quality/type of publication are major factors. But I'm guessing that publishing in a peer-reviewed journal annually would be expected of most academics, two such publications annually would not be unusual, three would be considered prolific. In addition, a book every 5 years? conference presentation/paper once or twice a year? Just looking for some very broad estimates.

How do I get a magazine to publish my article?

monkeyman82 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:03:19 -0800

I want to write a story in a nationally syndicated magazine about a friend to draw attention to childhood cancer. Where do I start? I have a friend whose son went through Burkitt's lymphoma. He (the son) is in remission and doing fine- no small feat for a 16 year old! Over the past couple of years, the father has kept a blog documenting the whole journey, and describing other patients that suffer from childhood cancer. To raise money, he (the father) trained for and completed a marathon.

As I was reading Men's Health last month, I realized that his story would make an incredible article and would draw a lot of attention to- and potentially raise awareness of- Burkitt's lymphoma.

I was thinking about writing an article about it, but short of actually writing the thing, I don't know where to start. Does anyone have any experience with writing and submitting magazine articles for publication?

The Toad wants to become Dr. Toad. Can you help?

The Toad — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:26:10 -0800

Academic Philosophy: Is there any chance a US/UK publishing house will consider my dissertation for publication? I just finished my dissertation in Philosophy at a German University. It's written in English and is concerned with a current debate in Bioethics.(*) I've passed all examinations and am now required to publish my dissertation before I can call myself "Dr. phil." (German equivalent to Ph.D.). Publishing your dissertation is not optional, but required in the German system. The normal procedure for a German doctoral student would therefore be to find a publishing house. However, I've been told by fellow philosophers that publishing an English language dissertation with a German publisher (like Mentis, LIT…) is less than ideal, because then, nobody outside Germany will ever read it or have access to it.

So here's my question(s):

Do US/UK academic philosophers sometimes/ever publish their dissertations in book form, or is this totally out of the question (or only relevant for "superstars")? In Germany, almost all academic publishing houses have special divisions for publishing dissertations - I understand that this is not the case for UK/US publishers. Do publishing houses accept dissertations anyway?

In your experience, is there any realistic chance that US/UK publishers would consider a (English-language) German dissertation for publication, at all? If the consensus is that the chances of this working out are near to zero, I'm not going to waste any time on it... Doing revisions, even relatively extensive changes, would be acceptable for me, though.

I could, of course, also publish my dissertation online (my University has a system for this). That would be hassle-free and everybody anywhere could read it for free - great!!! But: in Germany (at least in Philosophy), there is a still a strong bias against publishing online. People assume that if your dissertation is "just" published online, this is because it's so terribly bad that no "real" publisher accepted it. Ugh. Publishing in article format is not an option either, since this would not satisfy the publication requirements of my university.

Any ideas? I do not plan on staying in academia, I just want to get this thing published in a way that looks half-decent and reputable in the long term (i.e. on my CV). My thesis advisor and his colleagues couldn't really help me with my questions...

[(*) In case you're curious: I worked on the ethics of creating human-animal interspecifics, i.e. chimeras and hybrids, and it was great fun!]

Publishing N00b Questions

unclejeffy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:41:26 -0800

I've got a publication I'd like convenience stores and others to sell. How do i get them to do that, and what kind of financial arrangements are involved? Let's just say that I'm publishing a tabloid-sized publication on a subject of great interest locally, and that it sells at retail for $1. Ideally, I'd like it to be sold at convenience stores, gas stations, and the like. (It is the type of thing that, because of the subject matter and price, will likely be purchased on impulse.)

Who do I need to approach? Individual managers at each store? A district manager for the chain stores? Owners?

And what do I need to offer them to make this an enticing deal? I am willing to split the sale 50/50 because I can still make a decent profit. Is that an arrangement that is likely to appeal to them? Do I ask them to buy them from me, or do they take them on consignment?

Answers to these and all of my unasked questions are appreciated!

Where Can I Find Self-Reflective Profiles?

themadjuggler — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:27:42 -0800

Where can I find examples of profile-writing that say as much about the profiler as the profilee? This year I will be leading a publication project with my ninth-grade English language arts classes in which they profile members of their community (local artists, musicians, shopkeepers, civil workers, etc.). Hopefully, my students will be able to look at these people's accomplishments/struggles and think about who they want to be in the future and how they will contribute to the community themselves. I want them to strike a balance between writing about their interviewees and writing about themselves, but I can't think of any good works of this genre to use as model texts.

My students have a wide range of academic abilities including some with special needs. There is a significant proportion of English language learners, as the school is in a largely Hispanic neighborhood of Brooklyn. At the very least, we will look at Sandra Cisneros's vignettes in The House on Mango Street, and perhaps Ernesto Quiñonez's Bodega Dreams.

What are your best suggestions for this group of young writers?

Why wouldn't this book be published in the US first?

Locative — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:17:36 -0800

Why isn't the sequel to The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters out in America yet when it's already published in the UK? The UK published the first book after America did, so why would the UK publish the sequel first now? Is it even going to be published in the US? Help me, booksellers and those knowledgeable in publishing! I read Gordon Dahlquist's book The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters when it came out in the USA in 2006. I knew he was working on a sequel, so I was eagerly awaiting its publication.

However, my recent Googlings show that a sequel, apparently called The Dark Volume, came out in the UK at the beginning of this month. What gives, since it isn't out in the US yet?

Since the first book came out in the UK after it came out in the US, why would the sequel not come out in the US first too? Did it not do well enough in the US to merit publication of the sequel? Is this possibly the reason that the first book hasn't come out in paperback yet, nearly two years since it came out?

How can I streamline editorial production?

BT — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:53:09 -0800

How should I improve the our small publication’s production schedule/process? Context: I’m the managing editor of a web-based book review publication. We have a tiny dedicated staff – myself, the ed-in-chief, and one dedicated admin person who handles things like contributor invoices, review copy requests, and maintains the calendar etc.

We’re part of a larger company, so I don’t have to manage the tech aspect of this, instead drawing on our production department and art department here to get things actually published live. Our company has a CMS that I use to enter all of our editorial content; not perfect, but workable. We publish new material almost daily, so it’s a challenge to manage the process and keep on top of things.

I’m essentially the bottleneck. Along with my boss I make assignments, look for good subjects to review, recruit contributors, and edit pieces as they come in (we share these duties, with him taking more of the first three, but it’s not hard-and-fast on that). I also do more nitty-gritty line edits and enter everything in the system to be published. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: making sure we’ve got art (special process for that), re-evaluating/updating calendar and rejiggering as problems emerge, and working on improving the whole thing. The admin person is a help but new to much of this and is still learning the ropes.

As am I, really. I’m using GTD to help me get my personal house in order, organizationally, but the issue is our overall system: I’m looking for a methodology AND recommendations for applications to help manage this. Ideally, a single system that captures and records assignments, deadlines, pub dates (with affiliated information about the actual subjects for the pieces) and matches them with contributor info/editorial responsibilities/action items would be ideal. If it can’t all come out of one application, then a smooth partnership between a couple of applications is fine.

Right now, we’re working out of basic spreadsheet and word docs. It’s manageable, but there’s a lot of redundancy and inefficiency. If you’ve wrestled with these issues, or work with an application/process that renders them manageable, I’d love to hear about it. And general advice about managing a small (but frequently updated) publication would not be amiss.

FYI: It’s a networked PC environment here, so Mac-only apps are no help.

Newsletter Name Help

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:14:15 -0800

Help me title the internal company newsletter! I'm responsible for the design and layout of an internal newsletter for my 30-40 person company. The newsletter is lighthearted in tone, with candid photos and community events as well as departmental updates to inform everyone what projects and developments are underway in departments they're uninvolved in. Everybody's too busy to really care what we call the darn thing, but I need something in the masthead. I need an innocuous but zippy title.

Say the company is called Jackson Financial Management, or JFM. (Names have been changed, but that's the format of the name.)

It's a third party money management business, which means it's the finance industry, so any money/investment puns are good. We have just passed one billion under management, a major milestone.

I'm not interested in rhymes or puns on the actual name, since it's actually the name of our President and founder, and that would be weird.

It's a rather posh company. They pamper us all with lots of fun perks. The expressed style of our employee group is what I think of as basically California wine country bourgeois. (No, I don't really fit in.) We've only recently stopped having drinking celebrations during work.

We're located right near the beach, and surfing/flipflops culture is pretty ingrained here. Little dress code in effect.

The newsletter will hopefully be distributed quarterly or so, but it's pretty flexible.

Help! I'm totally drawing a blank!

Starting a Magazine

divabat — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:01:22 -0800

How do I start a magazine? I've got a concept for a magazine that I find promising. I just thought of the concept yesterday, so I haven't really gone too indepth into it, but I do have some ideas of content, distribution, publication, and associated activities and media.

How do I go about making this magazine a reality? I understand that a large part of this is country-specific (licenses and so on), but what do you need to consider if you want to make the magazine international? Where do you find your team? What do you put in your business plan and budget? Where do you get the money?

Where do you start?

Web Site Launch Best Practices

redarmycomrade — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:03:23 -0800

I am an old media expert, but I need to understand new media pronto! Due to a large failure in our company, I am now tasked with developing and managing a workplan for launching our new online publication. I am looking for best practices and common pitfalls in launching an online publication. Case studies, white papers, articles, books, (even dictionaries focused on IT terminology) would all be helpful. Ideally, there is a seminal work detailing mistakes big media companies commonly make in planning, developing, testing and launching their sites.

List your favorite design publications

Foam Pants — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:36:44 -0800

What are your favorite publications for graphic designers? The library I work for may be carrying a few magazines of my suggestion. I would like some that would be helpful to publications folk who use Adobe Design Suite and also do web work. Magazines, digital or on paper, that offer tips on using InDesign, solving CSS design issues, provide inspiration through design examples, Illustrator tricks, etc. Anything that someone who is doing a wide variety of layout on both the web and on paper would find interesting.

Help me figure out the gossip before I get there, thanks.

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:59:01 -0800

What kind of reputation does MIT's "oldest technology magazine" Technology Review have? I have a Very Good Gig at a reputable university, but an opportunity to do two things I've wanted to do for a long time (1. Work for a magazine 2. Live in Boston) has opened up.

I've done the dotcom thing in a previous life and because of my experiences, job security is very important to me. I found this article (from August 2005) that speaks of the publication's "downsizing" in print editions and readership, but other than that, I don't know/can't find much else about how the magazine's doing and/or how highly it's regarded in the world.

1) If you read this publication, what's it's reputation?

2) If you're at MIT (or just happen to know), what's the outlook for the publication? Does it appear to be doing well? Is it having to fight to survive?

3) If you're currently working for a historically-print-now-online publication -- would you warn others to avoid the industry?

Thanks, send more info to mitwannabe@gmail.com.

This question is longer than most of my fiction.

aebaxter — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 11:03:22 -0800

What's the best way (non-spam) way to market a flash/micro fiction publication and community? (no, there are no gratuitous self-links inside) I've recently started an online flash fiction publication, and I set up forums so that flash and micro fiction writers could have a place to congregate.

I've already emailed the list owners of several Yahoo and Google groups with the information to pass on to their members if they choose, and I've bookmarked the links under relevant tags in del.icio.us. I'm also going to make a post in MeFi Projects.

What are some other non-spam ways to market this type of publication/community?

Translation rights?

bokane — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:43:28 -0800

Does anybody know what's involved in getting translation rights for a book? That is to say, I have a book that I've translated into English, and I want to see if I can get it published, even though I haven't gotten in contact with the original author. What's the order of operations here?

Political Writing Outlets

hazyjane — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 04:46:18 -0800

Writing political commentary. I have a friend (no, really) who has a lot of talent for writing political opinion pieces. He's had letters published in Time and in the International Herald Tribune. Now he'd like to start submitting some articles he has written, but he doesn't know where to send them. He's looking for small publications where he could get started, and he isn't necessarily looking to make money from this. In terms of slant, he describes himself as a civil libertarian, free-trader, legislative minimalist when it comes to issues of morality and mores, pro-redistributive lefty who veers right on issues of unnecessary regulation.

Any ideas on where he might find his niche? Much appreciated!

What is a good process to follow when pitching ideas to publishers?

theNonsuch — Mon, 24 May 2004 08:28:47 -0800

I have what I think is a great idea for a web / design-related book that I'd like to shop around. Can anyone who has been published before offer any advice, links, or a good process to follow when pitching ideas to publishers? (more detail in comments) A rough list of the publishers that could publish this book (to give you an idea of content): Peachpit, New Riders, GlassHaus, Wiley (professional division), maybe others I haven't though of yet.

The book idea is more of a theory book than a technical overview, so O'Reilly isn't really a possibility. Oh, and I have writing experience, but more of the newspaper / magazine kind than with longer formats like books.

Does anyone know of a resource for reviews of academic journals?

Jimbob — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 06:35:58 -0800

Does anyone know of a resource that provides "reviews" of academic journals - summaries of the kind of articles they accept, biases they are prone to, and their impact rating? Specifically, in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. I'm putting together some papers to publish, but don't know the "optimal" places to send them!

Why do some academic journals' websites bother with saying articles are "only available in print edition?"

vacapinta — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:22:45 -0800

I like to read several academic journals online. Some, however, only have article titles along with a "only available in print edition." However, quick googling for the author of each article often leads me to a copy of said article on the author's website . Without too much more effort, I soon have 90% of the journal contents, scattered across author websites. Whats going on here? Who is being fooled? If i built a web page with links to all these articles would i be in copyright violation?