Smug
Monday, July 16th, 2007The start of our summer postgraduate course in magazine journalism, and looking good. Part of the course means they have to produce a magazine and website on London attractions – but for business, not consumers. You could see their faces drop when they realised that they wouldn’t be spending the time on Tomb Blaster at Chessington or the London Eye.
The reason I’m feeling full of the rains of summer is that I actually got a piece of work that I could rate Acceptable for Publication at first go. Well done, Lucy. Most stuff starts off as Rejected or Needs Further Work, but as they resubmit, it works up the ladder.
One hefty plus is that they seem to understand the difference between news, features and analysis. Pretty obvious, you’d think. But you’d be astonished how long it takes those who don’t do it as a daily grind to get it, to avoid adding personal opinion or “weighting” stories.
This year, for the first time, they will produce a daily video blog detailing their progress. Should be worth watching, if only to see their skin get more pallow, the bags grow under their eyes, the slightly hunted look that says I’ve got two features to finish after this and three rewrites and I still haven’t done my Teeline homework.
I’m also feeling pretty smug because I’ve completed my presentation for the Asia Pacific Publishing Convention five days ahead of deadline, an almost unheard-of achievement for the typical journo.
It’s been rather forced on me because I fly off to Kuala Lumpur straight after the CLA Game Fair, where my magazine, Classic Angling, has a stand. I thought about camping – for about five seconds. Instead, I’ve got the use of a very flash motorhome (a Elnagh Baron 37, for those who know about such things).
A rather amusing tale about the magazine: I got a call from the present printers, asking to quote on printing it. OK, I said. And guess what? Their quote was nearly £500 less than I’m paying! Pretty hard for them not to move me to the lower figure after that. Riva, who is a far better bargainer than I am, also negotiated the next two issues at half price, on the principle that they must have been overcharging me for months.
Might be worth a few more publishers trying that one…