columnists
- Thread starter gettingby
- Start date
I have, in the past, written about computer technology, computer gaming, business, local politics, social commentary (Think Andy Rooney, Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen...), and I currently contribute to a firearms newsletter. But writing a column pretty much equates with writing a blog now days and the pay is pretty low for those columns that even pay. Might as well choose anything you want to write about and start your own blog.
Jeff
Jeff
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
- Messages
- 11,766
- Reaction score
- 12,242
- Location
- Atherton Tablelands
- Website
- snailseyeview.medium.com
I don't want to start a blog. No interest. But I could have an opportunity to have a column in a magazine a friend started a few years back. I know this person from my journalism days, and the magazine is well done and on newsstands. I want to try writing a few sample columns to see if I feel like this is something I can do long term. But I'm really not sure what direction to take this in. It's a glossy lifestyle magazine so there are a lot of things that could fall into that.
Thanks for the comments so far. I'm hoping more people will chime in about what they would want to write about. And if anyone has been a columnist, was it stressful at all? I don't think I should have a problem with a monthly deadline, but I also want my main writing focus to be on my fiction. My friend and I haven't discusses the specifics of payment, but I'm not expecting a lot and I know her to be very fair. I think it sounds like something I could have a lot of fun with so long as I pick the right thing to write about.
First, what anyone else would want to write about shouldn't play in your decision. You need to decide what you're comfortable writing that meets the publishing needs of the magazine.
As for stress, there's a deadline to meet and, usually, a word count to fit. In my business column it was 500 words bi-weekly. Computers I did 250 words a week. It's not easy to fit a concept into 250 words, so it took several rewrites and edits before it worked. I'm a terrible procrastinator, which doesn't work with a weekly column like that, so I'd be stressed for a few hours trying to mash it into something cohesive and understandable. You may or may not be like that.
The social commentary column I did was the most fun, also weekly and a 500 word goal. That one I also had to use a traditional journalism approach because it might get trimmed based on advertising needs. It had to be written such that any paragraphs could be lopped off if needed and I had to front-load the important material and even the conclusion. But the subject was wide open for material and there is always a ton of it.
Again, it needs to be appropriate to the magazine as well as your abilities. I stopped doing the local politics because I ran out of things to say. There's only so much in that fishbowl and I pretty much had covered it all. When I told the editor I wouldn't be available to do it, they went to wire commentary instead and dropped the local stuff. All three of the regular readers complained.
Jeff
First, what anyone else would want to write about shouldn't play in your decision. You need to decide what you're comfortable writing that meets the publishing needs of the magazine.
As for stress, there's a deadline to meet and, usually, a word count to fit. In my business column it was 500 words bi-weekly. Computers I did 250 words a week. It's not easy to fit a concept into 250 words, so it took several rewrites and edits before it worked. I'm a terrible procrastinator, which doesn't work with a weekly column like that, so I'd be stressed for a few hours trying to mash it into something cohesive and understandable. You may or may not be like that.
The social commentary column I did was the most fun, also weekly and a 500 word goal. That one I also had to use a traditional journalism approach because it might get trimmed based on advertising needs. It had to be written such that any paragraphs could be lopped off if needed and I had to front-load the important material and even the conclusion. But the subject was wide open for material and there is always a ton of it.
Again, it needs to be appropriate to the magazine as well as your abilities. I stopped doing the local politics because I ran out of things to say. There's only so much in that fishbowl and I pretty much had covered it all. When I told the editor I wouldn't be available to do it, they went to wire commentary instead and dropped the local stuff. All three of the regular readers complained.
Jeff
I was just curious about what other people would want to write about if they had a column. I'm not really looking for answers as to what I should write about. I want to give this a lot of thought. I just thought hearing what other people would be into could help spark some ideas of my own.
I'm also not entirely sure this is something I want to do. It seems like a pretty big commitment. I would feel awful if I didn't want to do it anymore after a few months. But I will be looking for something to do after I graduate. So, I really need to think of what sort of ideas really jive with me. There's no big rush. We plan to meet to discuss things in January. I would like to have a few ideas by then.
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2010
- Messages
- 2,739
- Reaction score
- 519
- Location
- Great Plains
- Website
- luciesmoker.wordpress.com
gettingby, I totally agree with it being a bigger commitment than you realize. I write a column, just 750 words every other month, but it's in a very public space. I feel on-display and work hard to keep my standards and quality high. So even though it pays very little, I spend a lot of time on it. It's not the same as contributing regular articles to a publication.
I recommend a clearly defined subject and target audience. Mine is about something I love, books. I started doing it as a way to keep up my reading (important to my craft), but it can generate a lot of emails so I keep it calm by focusing on books with an Oklahoma connection and that are both digital and on-the-shelf in at least one OKC-area bookshop. Other than taking limited review requests for those, I write about what I like.
A column is a relationship. Keep it fresh. You need consistency, but also to change up the format and do something different every once in a while, like margarita night with an office friend. A few issues ago, I did an interview with Ally Carter instead of reviews. The next issue, I returned to the format. I just did my holiday column almost completely with reader selfie-recommendations (out Dec. 15). That way, as they take in my recs through the year, the readers also know that I listen to them. It feels two-way.
And last, remember that the column is theirs. I took over this column on a rec from the last columnist. It had a certain look. Several months later, the magazine got a makeover and I was perplexed that my column still looked the same. I asked but they don't want to change the look. The readers apparently like it as-is. It's all about them.
Hope it helps,
Lucie
- Joined
- May 19, 2010
- Messages
- 3,873
- Reaction score
- 543
I'd love to write a column on crafts. There's so much that can be said. You can go with the historical aspects. Local crafters. Compare two different styles in the same field. The possibilities are just about endless.
Life humor. A mix of Erma Bombeck, George Will, and Patrick McManus. I have, in fact, written a few columns like this. It's the most enjoyable writing I do.
I've been a columnist for newspapers, alternative weeklies and online sites and politics, social issues and current events was where I plied my trade. I won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists and I was pretty good at it.
Picking the right thing to write about depends on what you have to say about it. I know American politics and Marvel comic books history, but I could get paid for writing about politics than comics, so that's the lane I stayed in.
It also helps if you actually have something to say people are interested in reading and someone is willing to pay you to say it to them. That's something of a prerequisite.
Since this thread started, the possibility of writing a weekly column has cropped up. It isn't in an area I had considered, bushcraft and survival, but it is something I know a lot about, and that interests me. It would start out at seven-hundred and fifty words, and go to fifteen hundred, if it's popular. I have to weigh it carefully. I can write a fifteen hundred word column in two or three hours without any trouble, so it wouldn't be terribly time-consuming, but columns have a way of taking over your life, which is why I haven't written one in a couple of decades.
Anyway, I'm rambling, thinking in print. I just don't know whether it's something I want to do. I suppose this is a good kind of problem to have, but it is more of a problem than I imagined it would be at this stage of life.
Anyway, I'm rambling, thinking in print. I just don't know whether it's something I want to do. I suppose this is a good kind of problem to have, but it is more of a problem than I imagined it would be at this stage of life.
Columns have a way of taking over your life? Shoot, I thought that was writing in general.
Jamesaritchie said:
Why is it a problem? If you have something to say in an area where you have expertise and you can express it clearly, coherently and in a way that is interesting, why wouldn't you pursue it?
Think of all the crap, the drek, the white noise which gets peddled, pitched and published out there that only confuses the reader or beats them over the head with the writer's wretched writing. Then think of what contribution you can make to elevate the debate with actual accomplished, polished and informative prose that publishers are thirsting for like a lost man in the Sahara.
That is a good problem to have. In this age of pages, posts, podcast and print, there's no shortage of writers writing for them, but are they any good at it or only creating more clickbait?
I know the difference. Why not be that difference?
Last edited:
It's the time factor. What I didn't mention is that, should the column do well, I'm committed to it for a year. I'm already a full-time writer, and I have no shortage of projects to write. Sometimes, in fact, I have more projects I have to write than I can write without adding a lot of hours to my schedule. I say yes far too often.
I'm not sure I can explain this properly, but over the years I've found that, for me, several smaller projects are more stressful, more tiring, than one large project that requires the same, or even more, writing hours per week. I love writing short things, but I've also found there's a huge difference in writing shorts when and if I have the time and the interest and the energy, and writing them because a deadline says I have to get something done right now.
Way back when, I landed a gig writing a short story each month for the same magazine, and an essay each month for another magazine. These were only fifteen hundred words, and seldom took more than a couple of hours to write, start to submission ready piece. Even those got worrisome after a year. This column is every week, and I'm just not sure I want to tie myself down like that.
But you make some excellent points, and I will consider them in my final decision.
It's not a problem I ever expect to have, but I can see the problem: it's probably easier to organize and write one book on a subject than to have to pick a piece of the subject, write the appropriate amount, and then have to pick another piece, week after week. It would start to prey on your mind after a while, once the obvious, suitably-sized topics are done. 52 columns a year, tick-tock. Good luck with your decision.
I had a weekly newspaper column for four and a half years. Loved the first year and a half, then I began to find it more and more of a drag and by the time things got shuffled around at the paper and my column got the ax, I was glad to get rid of it. After a couple of years it's not so easy anymore to come up with a new topic-related piece each and every week that will hopefully interest the readers.
Getting by: If you decide not to do it, let me know and I'll do it. My specialty is humor and music.