articles/Business/write-shoot-page3

Writing and Shooting for Publications - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

by Mike McNamee Published 01/08/2016

- Do send your copy in as Word or text files and make sure that your default 'Library for Spell Checking' is English English for UK publications. Not doing so means the sub-editor has to seek and kill every utilize, specialize, check and color in the copy! Also don't double space after a sentence full-stop - today's systems auto space this sort of thing.

- Do send pictures in RGB at 300ppi, full resolution and tagged with either Adobe RGB or sRGB - unless you have contrary instructions from the commissioning editor. Don't try to get clever on this; Kaylee, the Australian gap-year intern is just that - an intern in a gap year between learning nothing at school and going away to learn even less on her 'new meeja studies' course. The chances of her knowing or noticing the difference between SWOP and Fogra 39 are remote. She can't spell either (look at the way her mother spelt her name!) so name any files accurately with correctly spelt titles.*

- Don't send articles as Microsoft Publisher documents as this brings editors out in a rash.

- Do send a mixture of landscape- and portrait-orientation images. Provide at least a few images with lots of space around them for text. Room above a vertical picture for mastheads, and space either side for content announcements, make it more likely that your image will make it to a cover. Conversely, a landscape format with the main subject bang down the middle vertical is never going to make a double-page spread. Heed the fact that your full-format camera image is not a good fit for an A4 vertical (it's too narrow). If we pull it out to 210mm plus bleed, will we chop people's feet off, etc?

- Finally make sure you proof read the copy to within an inch of its life and then show it to at least one other person (preferably a professional proof reader) before it goes before any third party. *In case people accuse us of being sexist, the magazine also employs Dwayne, Kaylees's travelling companion. Dwayne too will be going back to Wagga Wagga to begin his uni course 'IT Disaster Creation' and is the reason your first email bounced because it contained images (how unusual for a magazine!). Dwayne's widowed mother (father went for crocodile fodder), Kaylee's mother, Kyli, and her latest partner are unlikely to be impressed when Dwayne and Kaylee pitch up in Wagga Wagga with the new baby, Dwaineeta.

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1st Published 01/08/2016
last update 09/12/2022 15:00:30

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