In article writes:

As Scott says, this means page counts are down, so the news hole is smaller.
If the news hole is smaller, there are two ways an editor can deal with
that. One is to keep articles the same length, but buy fewer of them. The
other is to buy the same number of articles, but make them shorter (and
usually shallower as a result). Most editors will choose the latter course,
because they want to maintain the variety of articles

When I was first approached about writing for Recording, I told the
editor at the time, Nick Batzdorf, that I felt that most magazine
articles about technical subjects in the magazines I read (I wasn't a
regular Recording reader at the time) were too short to really provide
much information, that I wanted to be able to write articles that were
long enough to cover the subject comfortably and not leave the reader
looking for something else. Nick was fair enough to allow me that
freedom and did very little to restrict what I wrote, either in size
or scope. I, in turn, tried to pick subjects that I could cover in
less than about 50% more than the space that he really wanted.

Today, I'm not writing as much for a couple of reasons. First, I
figure I've already said about all I know about on subjects I feel
comfortable covering. It's still important that people read about
those things, and there are new authors who are covering many of the
same subjects with their own style and spin. So at least many of the
fundamentals that I think are important are still being covered every
couple of years so they'll be available to the newcomers.

Second, the current editor is more fussy about length and frequently
asks me to shorten articles. It's frustrating to have to take out
stuff that you think is important.

If you'd like to read a couple of my reviews that were too long for
anybody to publish (the TASCAM US-122 review appeared in Recording in
a shortened form) you can visit my dinky little web page that I set up
because it was free and it gave me a place to put some stuff that I
wanted to pass along. http://mysite.verizon.net/mikerivers




-- a magazine with 8
features in it will stand a better chance of appealing to a newsstand buyer
than one with 4 features, because there's twice the possibility of finding a
topic that appeals to a particular reader. Whether the shorter article
satisfies the buyer is, of course, a whole 'nother question.

Peace,
Paul



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo