Brooks (along with Dick Karnes similar assessment) is entirely correct
in that general interest articles featuring some S products are a
excellent means of keeping S in front of the masses. case in point,
take computers. At one time the Mac was the poor step-child in the
puter world. Now if you see a laptop being opened it's a silver Mac! or
some other I product. Macintosh and many of the other major brands pay
big dollars to have their products featured in movies, music video's and
TV programs. Being seen often is worth gold to those consumer products.
Over the years I've had many of the best S layouts featured in the
majors along with layouts in other scales. However with the cut backs
in magazines' size, these features are backing up. I have one S layout
that will finally appear in 2014, while an HO layout that I did two
years ago has a 2013 publication date. I have another S layout to
photograph, but I'm told don't bother shooting until 2013. With that
being said, I wrote a relatively short construction article and
submitted it to MR and they ran it in a manor of a few months. It's not
as glamorous but, in my case, it helps pay the bills!
I have an article also in Bob's hands; also a construction article, so
we'll see if it flies.
When Bill Fraley, talks about his articles being chopped up and edited
to death. It happens! When RMC ran one of my features last year, I
don't think they changed a word. However, a few years back I had to
re-shoot the cover of MR three times because they kept making minor
changes--it can get frustrating at times, but they have their reasons
too. Don Heimberger has written an article on my layout and actually
did most of the photography--so it'll be interesting to see if, when and
how it looks in print. I routinely spent an entire day (often more)
setting up shots and fussing with them. Don spent maybe 15 minutes
during a tour.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 6/14/12 8:08 PM, bcgsteam wrote:
The recent string initiated by Bob's request for articles for the 1:64
MODELING GUIDE has prompted me to share a thought with this group that
I have shared before. Specifically, while there are many avenues to
promote our favorite scale, one that it seems to me has maximum
leverage is through articles in the mainline 'multi-scale' magazines.
There are five that come to mind: MR/GMR, RMC, NMRA Magazine, MRN and
Shortline & NG Gazette. These publications are generally aimed at
serious modelers of all scales and collectively must reach a very
large percentage of all modelers. If we want to draw folks in from
other scales by showing them what's possible in S, it's been my
opinion (and my 'mission', I guess) that we should 'meet them on their
own turf (i.e., in their own magazine) and not expect them to 'look us
up' by searching out and reading an S-only print or electronic
publication. This is not to say that S-only publications don't serve a
purpose, they do; but their primary readership, I would think, will be
folks already in S.
Brooks
