Novice authors

The contest of articles conducted by RSDN and MSDN has ended. Unfortunately, my material took only 5 place. But in a big box, the author’s number of the magazine and the incentive prize were delivered home by courier. Nicely.

I offer beginners (like me) and popular authors to share their experiences.

The most important thing is that the time to write articles pays off. Author's fees are small (about 4 thousand for the article), especially do not count on them. But anyway, you take yours. For example, I already get my second job thanks to writing: the previous boss read my article in the System Administrator, I got to know the current one by getting an invitation to Habr for my translation.

Want a professional relationship - work with professionals. When sending your material, do not expect a quick response, often it does not come at all. But there are publications showing a human attitude. For myself, I noted "Hacker" and "System Administrator". It is the most pleasant to communicate with the "System Administrator" - the answer about the receipt of your offer to stay with them you will receive within a couple of days, the decision on publication takes no more than 2 weeks. And guaranteed to get a fee. In the "hacker" you will be beaten, forced to issue an article in a certain way in a text file, arranging all sorts of special characters, and also translate the article into "ponokonovsky language." But all this is minor compared to what needs to be done to publish to the RSDN - one reading of the instructions is disheartening.
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Do not count on a quick publication. The appearance of your article in the journal will most likely happen no sooner than a month after its approval. Sometimes there are responsible editors and technical experts. I was lucky to work with such from the "System Administrator", together we greatly reworked the material - I even wanted to specify it as a coauthor, but the person refused. Get ready to take criticism and engage in edits, this process can be delayed for a couple of weeks.

Do not wait for "feedback" from readers of printed publications. The journal will indicate your e-mail, but no one will write to it. The Internet community in this regard is much more productive.

In the "Microsfot world" there are comrades involved in public relations, they often have the status of MVP and occupy the position of "evangelist". Don't count on them especially, despite the fact that communication with people like us seems to be their direct responsibility. I tried to get in touch with several of them with a proposal to translate, one answered, and then disappeared. A comrade spoke with Adobe "evangelist" (maybe they have a different name) - it seems to be better with it. I hope you learned something new from the note.