Gordon Woolf's Blog

How long does writing take?

When I was chief of reporting staff for a local weekly newspaper I used to tell reporters they should get a column inch of copy from every minute they spent on the phone. Columns were narrow so it worked out about 25 words to the inch, so a 500 word item should never take more than 20 minutes on the phone and about the same to write it from their notes.

Only one reporter on the newspaper was given the time to do in-depth research which could involve contacting many people in the hope of a snippet of information. But even he would keep several stories on the go at any one time so he always had a backup lead story for the paper which could be ready in half an hour or so if a planned story failed to come through.

Later, as a freelance I got 5 cents an inch from the same paper, so it would only pay if I cc'd the local radio news, and the State dailies plus a rewrite or two for farming newspapers and/or magazines.

The killer is the research time, but, as prolific author Isaac Asimov maintained, the key is to do your research once and then write it many times. Research into a period of history could produce a factual article for adults, a similar piece for children, a short historic story and maybe even a piece of present day or science fiction based on the same events and reactions transposed to a different time.

"I want to be a writer"

The words appeared on a forum to writers and small publishers: "I really want to become a writer."

If you want to be a writer, you write. You may be an unsuccessful writer or a successful one but it is impossible to stop a writer from being a writer.

As one of those people, I started writing as soon as I was capable of stringing words together with stories pinned up on school noticeboards and in school magazines.

I used my first wages to buy a typewriter and wrote a book which was never published. Eventually I found the one thing which could stop me writing -- the publishing business I started to publish my books after my initial publisher went broke. I went on to publish books by others and I had no time left to write. So the publishing company had to go, and I sold it to one of my authors. I wonder now if he is finding the same problem.

Writers have to write. You do not "become" a writer by applying to be one or taking a course.

Nost recently the writing urge has been satisifed by rewriting some of my older articles which, though published, were ones where I retained the copyright and therefore could use a basis for updating. (And that is an important point: because writers have to write they often overlook the aspects of being in business as a writer which will enable them to keep control of their writing; those aspects of being a writer can, and should be, learned).

The rewritten items do not have the same value as the original, so I am making them available at no cost under the Creative Commons licensing system for free use in ezines and blogs, etc, provided they mention me as the source and the name of at least one of my books so I may achieve a small extra income from those. You will find those articles at http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gordon_Woolf

Do-it-yourself publishing

"I've just got a price for laying out my new magazine/book/other printed project and it is a lot of money. Should I buy InDesign or QuarkXPress to do my own layout?"

That's the kind of email I get directly or see on email lists and forums just about every week. I'm an enthusiastic user of InDesign but the last thing I'm going to do is tell such a potential publisher is to rush off to the Adobe web site and buy it.

The first thing I'll ask is: "Have you costed in the time and training (either personal or by means of reading and practising)?"

I'm all for such a person learning to use InDesign if he or she will take the time to learn to use it and, in the case of a book, will use it for many other tasks in future.

After many years of using Ventura, then PageMaker, I did not do a book in InDesign until I had worked on a number of smaller jobs to make sure that I could work efficiently in the program. It is a very powerful program, but that makes it very easy to do a bad job.

There is also the likely situation that a newcomer will get quoted a lot more for a layout job by a designer than an experienced publisher would be charged for the same work. The book layout jobs I take outside of my own books, I do only for experienced publishers and know that, most times, I will only have to do the job once, so can quote lower prices. As an extreme example, when I did tabloid newspaper layouts I quoted $20 a page for work from newspaper publishers -- and $100 a page for anyone else. Subsequently I just stopped doing the $100 a page jobs as they were not profitable, whereas the $20 a page was.

Yes, the would-be publisher should by all means buy InDesign but should also realize that this involves learning yet another skill. Do you have the time for that? In general the answer has to be "no" unless you can find a skilled person who is prepared to charge you on a basis that they are also teaching you to do the job. That designer will expect and deserve a high fee -- but it may be the cheapest long term solution for the publisher.

Surveys: do they tell you anything

A magazine editor asked about some suggested questions for a survey on responses to his publication to be put to those attending a forthcoming meeting.

It was an opportunity for me to explain why I hate surveys, especially those presented at meetings or conferences: you either fill them out at random or go for the middle answer after you realize that you've been talking to colleagues and there isn't time to read the questions let alone answer.

It's a question which came up when I was preparing a new edition of a book for the printers, Type & Layout. The author, Colin Wheildon comments "over the years of my research, David Ogilvy more than once raised the question whether I was measuring reading comprehension or merely readability. I'm grateful for his persistence in moving me to confront this important and difficult question."

In this research he was measuring the extent to which typography and design affected understanding. His answer was that to overcome statements which might just reflect that a person had perused the articles and thought they understood them, was that there had to be actual questions on content to see whether the subjects had not only read the content, or thought that they had done so, but that they could answer questions which showed they had done so.

I was, in a way, pleased that it presented such major problems for the academics and practical researchers who advised Colin on this research, because it supported something I wrote in my own book on magazine publishing:

'Let's put a reader survey in the next issue, to find out what the reader wants!' To my mind this is like governments forming a committee: it gives the appearance of doing something without actually having to take any possibly unpopular decisions. Surveys have to be exceptionally well designed to get useful answers and can be designed to produce mostly the answers those setting the questions want to get.

I also quoted Dick Smith, the millionaire businessman and adventurer who started Australian Geographic magazine as suggesting the best way to find out what needs doing is to talk to staff and customers. He was surprised how many companies, especially large ones, which forgot to do this.

So, I suggested better results would be gained by walking among the attendees and raising the subject of the publication, and have a few other people do the same.

Did I say that I dislike surveys?