California Surveyor Magazine - Request for Contributions

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I've agreed to help put together our California Surveyor Magazine for a bit. I'm afraid Mr. Wilusz left very tough shoes to fill. It is my hope that we will find a more capable volunteer editor soon!

In the meantime, I wanted to put out a simple request for contributions to the magazine. Here is what we need in the near term:
1) Photos for the magazine cover.
2) Article submissions.

Photos need to be high resolution and I need a good one or two paragraph description of the scene/activity being photographed. Survey scenes from around our state would be best.

I'm interested in all sorts of articles on land surveying, land development, remote sensing, and GIS. At least for the short term, I'd prefer to avoid confrontational material that might start a flame war. I'm an advocate of open and intellectually stimulating discussion, but I feel like our organization needs more healing and peace right now than it does more conflict.

Please send me your contributions! I'm going to try to find a home for all the content we receive, unless there is a strong reason why we can't publish it.

In the long term, here is what we need:
1) People that can assist with editing.
2) People that might be willing to write a regular column.
3) People that can help with managing of digital content.
4) A public sector surveyor that could write the editorial every other issue. I've been a private side guy for my entire career, and I want to make sure the public surveyor voice is being heard in the magazine.

IF YOU ARE ALREADY CONTRIBUTING TO THE MAGAZINE OR ADVERTISING IN IT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I'm trying to glue things back together for our next issue, and I don't want to reinvent the wheel or leave anyone out.

If you know of any work that had been done on branding guidelines or style guidelines for CLSA, please let me know so I can incorporate those into the magazine design.

Thanks in advance for all of your help.I'll try not to mess up our flagship magazine too badly. :]

Landon
sunburned.surveyor@gmail.com

[desert turtoise]

I made a submittal of an article to the magazine, and two resubmittals over a period of four years. The editor and then the assistant editors all rejected the article as "not ready for publishing". The third and final submittal during this past summer came back with an incredible 36 questions and objections from an assistant editor. I could see there was no point in continuing to submit. I had no intent to represent my article as a "white paper" and I do not think I did. In the article I had pointed out certain facts and on rare occasions offered an opinion, in what I thought was kind of an informal article. None the less, the process proved to be useless. I discontinued my state membership as I was not given a voice in the state magazine. I am happy to continue my local chapter membership as I do feel welcomed and allowed to have a voice..

I sent the same article to two of our national professional land surveyor magazines; they each liked and wanted to publish the article. In fact, their enthusiasm was such that I was worried they were going to have a legal battle over who would get to publish it. I gave one of the two magazines the nod and it was published with what was good feedback from a number of readers who wrote back to me.

Unless the policy has changed, I suggest to amateur and novice writers such as myself to consider writing for Professional Surveyor Magazine, Point of Beginning Magazine, or the American Surveyor. They understand that most of us are not professional writers and are willing to consider us.

The bottom line that I came away with was that the either the state magazine was looking for material from "professional writers" or else they were just too nit-picky. Take your choice or maybe there are other reasons ?

[SPMPLS]

Well, apparently the previous editor was doing something correctly with regards to journalism.

NSPS Journalism Award
2008 - Best Magazine
2009 - Best Magazine
2010 - Best Magazine
2011 - Best Magazine
2012 - Best Magazine
2013 - Best Magazine
2014 - Best Editorial
2014 - Best Magazine
2015 - Best Editorial

By the way, Professional Surveyor no longer exists. It is now xyHt magazine.

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I know a few people had bad experiences when submitting articles previously. I can't comment on the editorial review of submissions to the magazine before today. I'm hoping that you will allow me to start as editor with with a clean slate. I welcome contributions to the magazine from ALL our members and will try to make the publication process as easy as I can. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with getting published in one of the national magazines either.

I have a goal to make our publication process more inclusive, regardless of what happened previously. I'd prefer to focus on how to improve things with the magazine moving forward rather than focus on things we can't change in the past.

Landon

[-Dave Ryan-]

Landon,

Thanks for taking this on, even as a fill-in while the permanent editor search is going on. John has really done a fantastic job and will be extremely difficult to replace. The various editors have each had their own styles over the years and contributed a great deal. It's no easy job, but someone is out there who will be a good fit. You are to be commended for stepping in, while I'm sure you already have plenty of other stuff on your plate.

Dave Ryan
Arcata, Ca.

[dedkad]

Unless the policy has changed, I suggest to amateur and novice writers such as myself to consider writing for Professional Surveyor Magazine, Point of Beginning Magazine, or the American Surveyor. They understand that most of us are not professional writers and are willing to consider us.

The bottom line that I came away with was that the either the state magazine was looking for material from "professional writers" or else they were just too nit-picky. Take your choice or maybe there are other reasons ?

Maybe they weren't looking so much for "professional writers" but rather articles that portray a level of professionalism. DT, please do not take this as a comment directed at you. I have not read your article, so cannot speak to that. However, one of the beefs I sometimes have with the articles in American Surveyor is that they allow writers to throw in their opinions, derogatory comments, and demonstrate other non-professional behavior. I see this type of behavior at my local CLSA meetings, and I see it on this forum. I am embarrassed for those who act this way and I am embarrassed as to how it portrays surveyors as a whole. I always felt the articles in California Surveyor were top notch and hope they continue to meet those standards.

[mpallamary]

Let me know if you want to use some material from Lay of the Land. They are entertaining.

http://www.amazon.com/Lay-Land-History- ... 1410702847

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

Thanks for the offer Mike. We should talk more about what content from the book would be a good fit for the magazine. Ping me at sunburned.surveyor@gmail.com with your ideas. I'd love to get a little practical history included in the next issue.

Landon

[mpallamary]

Great! Will do. I am very excited about you taking this chore on! Thanks.

[Rob_LS]

And THAT ladies and gentlemen is how you sell.a book!

Rob

[mpallamary]

Cute! Looking forward to seeing you!