Re: CFDJ isn't exactly kicking bootay

[John Paul Ashenfelter]

If I remember the number right in the last solicitation to advertise in SYS-CON that I got, the CFDJ numbers were something like 3,000 and the JDJ was something like 50,000 (Sorry if I'm off in specific number, but order of magnitude should be right). Hard to run a magazine and pay for content with ad revenue on a small circulation. Professional journals in the sciences handle this by having 4-digit subscription prices -- or by having the *writer* pay for publication (yeah -- you have to do the research, submit it for peer review, and then pay to have it published. standard part of most NSF grants)

I just wrote my first CFDJ article this week. I've written for O'Reilly, WebReview, searchDatabase.com for pay and its been fun, but it was also fun to write up something I had recently been playing with (Ant) and write it up in a ColdFusion context. Pay's only part of it -- professional recognition plays a role. I've written 4 books with two more coming out soon and none of them made close to my hourly rate :) But the contracts, training gigs, and speaking gigs partially made up for that. I've spoken at a number of conferences and there's rarely any money involved (and if there is, it's again, far less than what the preparation hours would pay if used for contracting). Most professions have this mix of "paid" activity and "professional courtesy" activity. It's good professionally to give back to the community, regardless of whether there's a direct payment (cash) or indirect (reputation, goodwill, business development).

That said, I'd write far more frequently if there was a token payment :) I've found that writing for online pubs that pay is second only to training as far as bang-for-the-buck goes. I only know one person who's made a significant amount from a book (nearly 6 figs from an official MS IE book). And you've got no time to consult if all you do is write :)

And none of this should be construed to be critical of Matt wanting to be paid for writing -- the contributions he makes to CF-Talk alone range from really useful to really fun. I'm guessing that Michael Dinowitz isn't paying for Matt's CF-Talk content....

Regards,

John Paul Ashenfelter
CTO/Transitionpoint
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Matt Liotta
  To: CF-Talk
  Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 9:14 PM
  Subject: Re: CFDJ isn't exactly kicking bootay

  > I posted a link - why don't you write an article?  Personally, I'd
  > love to
  > see one from you.
  >
  When Sys-con starts compensating authors for content and is able to
  actually find a significant number of real subscribers instead of lying
  about their readership just to support ad sales then I might be
  interested. In the mean time, I will continue to write for reputable
  publishers.

  -Matt

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