Page 10 - 37. MRH13-03-Mar2013-L
Basic HTML Version
MRH staff notes - 2
Medium-sized pieces (3-6 pages):
A medium-sized article gen-
erally isn't as detailed as a step-by-step. Most often the article
describes the general process used, and highlights a few key
techniques with photos and/or diagrams. This kind of article
typically has 500-2000 words and 6-20 photos or diagrams with
captions of 2-3 sentences each. We typically pay about $150 -
$300 USD for a medium-sized article like this. If you include spe-
cial media like a video or a click-n-spin photo series, we pay extra
for that.
Large in-depth works (7-20+ pages):
Most often, our larger
articles follow a step-by-step format, but any in-depth treat-
ment is possible here. An article in this category generally has
1000-5000 words or more, and 20-60+ photos with captions
of 2-3 sentences each. We typically pay $400 - $1400 USD or
more for these in-depth articles. Almost always, we like to get
extra media with this category of article, which ups the pay-
ment even more.
Most layout tour articles fall into the large category. If you're of a
mind to do a layout tour article for us, make sure you follow our
interview format. Also, we like to get a video with layout tours, so
readers can see the layout and meet the owner or club leaders.
If you do happen to get a cover photo, we pay $100 for that.
To help you better know how to submit articles to us, we're run-
ning an article in this issue that goes into some detail about how
to create and submit an article to MRH. Tom Patterson, who has
made the cover a couple times now, tells you about his experi-
ences doing his first article for MRH.
Finally, make sure and check our author submission guidelines
) and our new author style
guide
. The style guide
makes your life simpler by answering such nagging questions as:
do you write box car, or boxcar?
It's the photos that make or break submissions
While we're on the subject of article submissions, let's add a
very important note. Photos, not text, make or break an article
with us. You will note Tom's article deals a lot with the photo
side of his article-building effort.
We have budding authors who try to send us text samples to
see if we'd be interested in an article, and we respond:
send us
some photos with captions, please.
The reason for this is simple: if you can write at all coherently,
we have copy editors who can make you sound good. But if you
can't take a decent photo, then all bets are off. Photoshoping
bad photos gives you one consistent result: Photoshopped
photos that look bad. Unfortunately, there's not much you can
do to change that.
Good visuals matter most with us. If you can take a good photo
that's well lit, well-focused, and well-composed, then you
rise to the top quickly. If you study our article ratings, you will
notice the articles with the best-looking images tend to be in
the top 5 every issue. The articles with B-grade photos (and
we do run a few of those when the ideas merit it) tend to get
lower ratings in the reader feedback.
Sending MRH really large files
Files of 10 MB or larger size may give you problems if you try to
post it to our site as an attachment or if you try to send it to us as
an article. What do we recommend to solve this problem?
Dropbox is one good option, or the latest new kid on the block for
"internet cloud storage" is Google Drive.
MRH-Mar 2013
