In his blog entry explaining “Why I resigned from JDJ (epesh.blog-city.com)“, Joe describes some of the issues he had with JDJ management. I must say that my recent experience as an author didn’t leave me begging for more, and I was thinking of writing to Joe to explain why I was going to take my next article idea elsewhere when I found his resignation. I’m sorry to see him go but I sympathize with his situation.
Since this was my first time writing for a print publication, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The revision process went smoothly once the staff found my submission, which had evidently been misplaced after the earlier resignation of editor Jason Bell. The one thing that really got under my skin was what happened after my article was published. I understood from the start that there would be no cash compensation for my work, and while that wasn’t my ideal arrangement I accepted it. After the issue went out, the only contact I had from the magazine staff was an offer for reprints at a “heavily discounted” rate but with a “free” PDF version of my article that I could post or distribute. The minimum quantity for reprints was far beyond any need I could imagine, but I was interested in the PDF so I asked them to quote a price. The quote was in the middle hundreds of dollars, which I found outrageous. That was it – no “thanks,” no “we look forward to your next proposal,” just trying to extract revenue from one of the people who made that issue possible.
That pretty much decided it for me – in my limited interaction with Joe I had judged him a right guy and looked forward to working with him again, but the magazine needs to improve the way it treats its authors. Until I see some evidence of that, I’ll take my work elsewhere.
http://epesh.blog-city.com/read/trackback/645152.htm