[rehab21]

 

[petejh]

I don't think I'll bother - unless Ian Parnell/Dave Pickford or Dave Simmonite/Ian Smith care to correct me I'm pretty sure the mags aren't interested in publishing articles with a heavy text-content and no pretense of being visually appealing. Besides, whilst I may be ok at the short forum rant-style of writing I'm not sure I'd be happy to send in a longer article for publication.

Someone mentioned the photos often being awful in the old mags - agreed, however they now seem to me to have gone too far the other way to the detriment of good writing which challenges the reader to think.

Your Buoux article was decent enough. What would have been great however would have been to get some of the 80s climbers to recount their experiences of the crag  - a la Alpinist crag profile.

[Johnny Brown]

The payment structure tells you all you need to know about the climbing mag's priorities: photographers get paid lots more than the writers do.

Really? That's news to me. In the fourteen or so years I've been sending photos to mags, the rates have dropped slightly. Whereas the rates for writing have gone up in the same time, unless you are Jim Perrin with your (arguably deserved) special rate, in which case you were fired.

Getting less than I did in 2000 for photos, and it being worth a lot less in real terms, makes it seems hardly worth sending stuff in. Luckily for the mags, the intervening period has seen photography get massively easier, and much more popular, so they are in a buyers market. And I'd still rather get £30 for a 2/3 page in a mag than bugger all from UKC (who also pay better for writing in my experience), especially if it gets reproduced nicely.

As for Pickford's Taliban remarks, I suspect they were included merely to allude to the fact that Dave, despite being a bronzed intellectual blonde adonis, has ridden through Afghanistan on a self-restored penny farthing without ever once disrespecting a woman or failing to charm the locals, despite their initial reservations (the full swashbuckling story of which is in his new book). Whereas Gypsy John would have been beheaded for refusing to nod to the biggest beard.

The bizarre bit would seem to be Dave's assertion that Redhead's opinions were 'uninformed'. Many things they may be, but uninformed they are not. In fact, at the risk of sounding like Franco, if you've understood his argument (which I have some sympathies with) how familiar he is with the finer points of comps is a moot point.

I too would like to see the full article. 10p a word Shark, with the advertising already done for you?

[petejh]

Really? That's news to me. In the fourteen or so years I've been sending photos to mags, the rates have dropped slightly. Whereas the rates for writing have gone up in the same time, unless you are Jim Perrin with your (arguably deserved) special rate, in which case you were fired.

Going off what I know from some recent articles it's about a two-thirds/one-third payment ratio in favour of photos, for a 6-8 page article.

[Paul B]

What would have been great however would have been to get some of the 80s climbers to recount their experiences of the crag  - a la Alpinist crag profile.

You'd likely be amazed (or maybe not after producing your guide) at how vague or lacking some of the recollections of people who spent a great deal of time there during that era are. I certainly was.

[JamieG]

I don't understand how you could respect his climbing without respecting what he says. Surely his climbing is all about his philosophy. If you think that his philosophy is bollocks, then surely you just think his climbing was bollocks too, or you just don't understand?

Had to wad this. Too good!

[andy popp]

What would have been great however would have been to get some of the 80s climbers to recount their experiences of the crag  - a la Alpinist crag profile.

You'd likely be amazed (or maybe not after producing your guide) at how vague or lacking some of the recollections of people who spent a great deal of time there during that era are. I certainly was.

I'm not!

[mrjonathanr]

I don't understand how you could respect his climbing without respecting what he says. Surely his climbing is all about his philosophy. If you think that his philosophy is bollocks, then surely you just think his climbing was bollocks too, or you just don't understand?

Had to wad this. Too good!

Too good for what? Pseud's corner?

A work of philosophy:

+
A rock:

[Teaboy]

I'm curious to know when this golden age of creative writing was. Like Toby I read every mag I could get my hands on from 1987 until relatively recently and I don't rembered it. I remember a couple of good things by Grimer but mostly it was pretentious crap by Terry Gifford and David Craig, an article about Sid Vicious drowning here or one about someone getting something in their eye at Pex there. Then again I'm no artist and like pretty pictures.

Incidentally, although I'm in possession of a fully functioning pair of rose tinted specs I think Climb is now better than anything published in the UK before (with the obvious exceptions of Mountin Review and that edition of OTE with the Power and the Glory article). However, I'm still undecided who, out of JR and DP, I'd like to spend an evening in the pub with less.

Christ, I've rambled on impenetrably, maybe I could write an article.

PS. I forgot Perrin - he was shit as well.

[Falling Down]

John's biggest crime is his overuse of exclamation marks and "quotes".  It's fucking exhausting to read...

[Johnny Brown]

Going off what I know from some recent articles it's about a two-thirds/one-third payment ratio in favour of photos, for a 6-8 page article.

The rates are clearly laid out - £15 for a postage stamp up to ~£50 for a full page, £70 dps (roughly, from memory). Writing @ 10p/word. How that works out over 6-8 pages depends on how the article is laid out, but given that they rarely publish articles longer than 2000 words, you're looking at max £200 for the words. The photo rates are low compared to every other market I've sold to. The rates for writing are not, particularly. Assuming 2 8 hour days to write your 2000 word article, £100/day is a rate most freelance writers would be pretty happy with. Getting a digi snap published may seem like easy money but shooting a decent article's worth is not, and you have higher overheads than writers. It doesn't seem an unfair balance to me. If you still believe it is true that:

The payment structure tells you all you need to know about the climbing mag's priorities: photographers get paid lots more than the writers do.

Then that is a national problem rather than, as you imply, Climb's attitude to writers.  Either way, I'll stick with rope access management to pay the bills.

[mrjonathanr]

Really, it was all downhill after Crags   There's probably better writing in the archive of Uni club mags if you're really bothered about literary output.

The principal role of a magazine used to be publishing what was in the new routes book as far as I'm concerned, and that can be tweeted with corroborating footage before most protagonists have got back to the car nowadays.

Add in blogs and a scurrilous forum site or two and it must be very difficult for them to find a role, although there's always that certain pleasure of physically settling down to read hard copy.

By-the-by, the quotes from DP are a bit ad hominem and don't read like he's understood JR's argument, not that he's easy to follow, deliberately in part I assume, but also through a measure of self-indulgence.  i think you should at least take the time to grasp his idea before rejecting it, unless the objection is it's impenetrable.

Those Taliban wallahs aren't impenetrable though, their communications are crystal clear 

[Fiend]

Was just randomly googling Jim Perrin and discovered there is a whole website devoted to bad-mouthing him! That's proper celebrity ...

Jesus. Just had a brief look and that is a pretty seriously antagonistic site.

[a dense loner]

I've not read any of the above, I've always thought Pickford whilst half talented a long time ago and redhead even longer ago. I've absolutely no interest in what any of you've got to say and if I had why would someone wear a tiny fake cock? That's about it really

[petejh]

I think you'll find it's Redford and Pickhead.

[shurt]

Think I would leave the pub early on with either of them tbh but for different reasons. Dave's endless reminding us of how well read he is feels desperate, he's never said 'E9 is out there in the streets every night' and the white 911 carrera seems overkill.
John would just do my head in eventually by the sound of it bandana or no bandana...
I like my memories and mags used to be better - fact. I won't be reminiscing in 10 yrs about Climb magazine or its pompous editorials. Ote was good and I've been reading back issues at the wall which corroborate this.

[Muenchener]

Ote was good and I've been reading back issues at the wall which corroborate this.

And OTE in its turn was vapid glossy photojournalism compared to the gritty authenticity of Crags. Neither is coming back, the world has changed, get over it.

UKB now fulfils a large part of the function of something like Crags, so that niche simply doesn't exist any more for a print magazine. Print magazines therefore have to find something else to do where they can compete with the internet, and high(ish) quality photo reproduciotn seems to be one of the things that quite a few people are trying.

(Alpinism otoh is probably not inferior to Mountain)

[Pantontino]

I've read a copy of JR's new article and it is pretty confrontational and mischeivous, a bit like the man himself. He misfires on a few things but then redeems himself at the end by writing an excellent piece about hanging out on The Range at Gogarth with Tony Loxton and doing a new route with Martin Crook.

I might not agree with everything JR says but I'm glad he exists - in a way, he's a bit like Russell Brand.



He stirs up a reaction and makes waves, gets people talking and perhaps helps us all to re-frame our points of view, or not, depending on how it works out.

(That being said, I do think it is unfair of John Appleby to publish the email spat with Dave Pickford without publishing JR's article.)

[shurt]

Ote was good and I've been reading back issues at the wall which corroborate this.

And OTE in its turn was vapid glossy photojournalism compared to the gritty authenticity of Crags. Neither is coming back, the world has changed, get over it.

UKB now fulfils a large part of the function of something like Crags, so that niche simply doesn't exist any more for a print magazine. Print magazines therefore have to find something else to do where they can compete with the internet, and high(ish) quality photo reproduciotn seems to be one of the things that quite a few people are trying.

(Alpinism otoh is probably not inferior to Mountain)

I know the world's moved on, I'm over it. I don't like where mags have gone, its not the only direction they could have gone in. I don't know what's a better idea but then I'm not running a climbing magazine and Climb is wak.

[petejh]

I've read a copy of JR's new article and it is pretty confrontational and mischeivous, a bit like the man himself. He misfires on a few things but then redeems himself at the end by writing an excellent piece about hanging out on The Range at Gogarth with Tony Loxton and doing a new route with Martin Crook.

Get you, you big tease! Share and share alike...     

[SA Chris]

Although I've not read one of late I used to subscribe to the US Climbing (not too expensive if you don't mind getting them late) and was always impressed with the quality of writing as well as good photos they managed to get in. It's pretty advertising heavy too, I guess this is the bonus of having such a big market to sell into; loads of advertising and a wider audience means you can stray a bit further from the median of maximum popular appeal. Not read one in a while, so don't know if the standard has been maintained.

Rock and Ice used to be good too, but seems to have gone over to the "large format full of glossy pics" model lately.

[tomtom]

OK - this debate has got more normal now its about print vs new media...

I had a good drunken conversation on a night out in Hull with the Mirrors Northern Editor (who is old friends with MrsTT). We talked about old vs new media quite a bit and he felt that newspapers were effectively dying - a burning platform as it were.. He thought the Mirrors online (and otehr newspapers online) mechanism was a cludge - trying to combine the methods and history of old style of print journalism with the new web based model. It was interesting - he suggested that from their research there was a core of mirror readers (maybe 1mill/500k) that would be there for the next 20-25 years and would always buy a hard not electronic copy. So his idea was that the Mirror should ditch all the online stuff and just focus on the print version - in the knowledge that it would only last 20 odd years or so.. but an effective 20 years (if that makes sense).

Some media (climbing probably included in this) won't have the 'old lag' of readers who will never take an online version so the print version is effectively dead...

On a related point, I recently purchased a copy of the New Scientist (as my research was briefly featured in it) and was shocked at a. how thin it was and b. it was £4!!!!

[SA Chris]

I've occasionally bought it in the past, but recently saw one with an article I'd like to read in depth and baulked at the price. Guess the thinness and price is due to lack of adverts, so it's all good content, rather than half crap.

[Johnny Brown]

Going off what I know from some recent articles it's about a two-thirds/one-third payment ratio in favour of photos, for a 6-8 page article.

Climb have emailed me to correct my figures (I must have been thinking of Climber, but this would be pre-Simmo).

Climb pay '£80 per page split between words and pics'. So presumably 50:50, not 33:66. I am talking to myself here so that will do on the subject.

I don't remember any magazine other than Alpinist ever publishing much more than a couple of pages of pure text. Even then Alpinist usually break it up with either paintings or unrelated photos with captions.

[Pantontino]

I've read a copy of JR's new article and it is pretty confrontational and mischeivous, a bit like the man himself. He misfires on a few things but then redeems himself at the end by writing an excellent piece about hanging out on The Range at Gogarth with Tony Loxton and doing a new route with Martin Crook.

Get you, you big tease! Share and share alike...     

Sorry, Pete it was a paper copy that Mark Lynden showed me the other day. Not that I would have any right to pass it on if it was a word file. I'm sure it'll pop up on To Hatch a Crow soon enough.