Re: Re: Donna Snyder-Smith's columns

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Thought I would add my two cents to the "paying for articles" thread, as I
can appreciate it from both sides.  Whether or not you get actual
compensation or ad space or whatever from it, you do get return for having
published something.  If nothing else, some name recognition---"Oh, you're
the one that wrote that nice article about <enter topic here>".  You get
some personal satisfaction out of helping some riders work through problems
you might know a little something about, and if you have a product or
service to sell at some point, hopefully it will give you some credibility
(or not, depending on what you had to say).  When and if I ever get a book
finished, I'm counting that enough people will recognize my name and buy the
book based on something else of mine they've already read and found
worthwhile.  Writing a reasonable article does take alot of effort, it's
definitely not something you can rip out in a half hour. At least, I sure
can't.  Like Angie described, sometimes you have to sweat blood over them to
make it all work.

From AERC's point of view, I can see that you have to be careful about where
you spend your pennies.  I don't think it's a big deal to provide some ad
space to Donna, but OTOH, if EN does that for Donna, then every other
contributing author has an equal right to ask for ad space as well, and they
would have a legitimate gripe if EN said no to one author and yes to
another.  Do I *need* ad space?  Nope, not at the moment.  Can AERC offer ad
space to everyone that contributes an article?  No way, it can really add
up.  When and if I ever need ad space, I'll pay for it same as Sundowner and
Sportack do.  In the meantime, if I found out that EN was truly paying for
articles from one author, but not offering compensation to me for an article
of equal quality, I'd start to seriously rethink whether or not I would
continue to write for them for free (and therefore, at all).  I don't mind
writing for free, but I better not be the only one doing it.  If it's not a
consistent policy, it's not fair (and that should go for the honorariums
offered convention speakers as well).  Having said that, twenty words at the
end of an article saying that such-and-such offers clinics and can be
reached at this phone number or website seems equitable for everyone.
Whether that's enough for the author is up to them.

To some extent, EN already has to make some concessions with the unpaid
articles they get.  If I'm going to contribute something, I need it in by a
certain date, but they wouldn't be in a position to really gripe if I said
not to expect it until the January issue.  They don't dictate to me what I
want to write about, and they don't have exclusive copyright to it.
They're flexible about how much space I can have to say what I have to say.
That's an advantage to me for a variety of reasons.  So it's definitely not
all stacked in EN's favor.  I can appreciate Kat's opinion that EN shouldn't
try to compete with the big magazines like Equus and should be just a
newsletter.  But I think EN is filling a gap otherwise left unfilled by
providing some technical endurance information that you won't get from
Equus, or Chronicle of the Horse or wherever.  Maybe you can get it from
TrailBlazer, but after ten years of trying to convince them to keep my
subscription straight, I gave up even trying.

Sorry that Donna won't be continuing the regular feature, but can certainly
understand it, it's a big commitment.  I'll be looking forward to the
special articles she submits throughout the next year.

As usual, too much rambling.  JMO.

Susan G