I got no reply from Javaworld or Dr. Dobbs, but I had not tried JDJ. I wrote Tony Stintes and got no reply,
but I think this: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2002-05/01-qa-0503-excel3.html was sufficient
reply.
Somehow we managed to get coverage in some German professional journals, etc. But I'm not entirely sure
why "accidental marketing" works so much better in countries where English is not the native language maybe they try harder
to find things?
Once again, thank you so much for this. It was very helpful to me!
-Andy
Steve Downey wrote:
I don't think I've ever NOT gotten a reply. It has been a few years since I've written, but I doubt things have changed that much.
Getting enough decent technical material for a magazine is always a problem. Writing can be fixed by an editor, although it's better if it doesn't have to be fixed too much. Technical content can't be fixed by an editor.
You do need to check that you're hitting the right person. The thing to do is to check the author's guidelines from the publication. It's usually a link on the main page of the website. I think JDJ has a web form for proposals, for example, so that they don't get lost in someones inbox. It can be a little bit of a problem, as a lot of the editors work virtually, and hand-off can be botched.
As long as you're clear who you are, being a principal is not an issue. Think about it from the other side. Would you rather read an article about JUnit by Erich Gamma or John Doe? You should know more about POI than anyone, and are in a better position to write about how to use it than anyone.
On Tuesday 22 October 2002 11:19 am, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
Cool! Suggestions? I have never actually gotten a reply from an editor
himself.
Of course for project validty, it may be better to have a non-prinicipal
contribute (if I write about POI it will not likely be viewed as
objective but someone who has written about other APIs will probably get
more credibility there), but that is another story.
Steve Downey wrote:
On Sunday 20 October 2002 02:03 pm, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
Release more often, announce the releases. While you may have hadNo, it's not the best approach.
articles published, I've never actually seen one. (I've seen them on
Maven, Tomcat, Velocity, Struts to no end, Cocoon, Struts). I found the
best approach to this is to spam magazines and complain that they
haven't covered it. Find and article on say JUnit and write the author
"but you haven't written on web app testing with cactus!"
The best way is call up an editor and say, "I'd like to write an article
for you about Cactus. Cactus is <blah>, will interest you readers because
of <blah>, and the article will be about N words long, not counting
source code. Can I email you an outline?"
Editors have the incredibly difficult job of keeping the covers of the
magazine apart. They desparately need articles. They can't pay as much as
would seem fair, but enough to buy decent toys.
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