Who's going to write it? How about the writers for The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The Economist, The Paris Review, etc. I could fill up the length of a long-form article with names of publications that have long-form writing.
The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're paying $25k a year. The article talks about 2000-3000 word articles. At the rate Tumblr's paying, that's $80-$120 per article. Who are they kidding? At those rates, if you're an established writer, you're better off posting to a personal blog and relying on ad revenue.
There have been a few magazines (both online and print) that have recently managed to establish themselves as reputable publications that have good writing. What they've done is pay above-market rates to attract good writers. After all, why would you publish in some no name publication instead of The Atlantic? Tumblr seems to be using the opposite strategy.
I spent 4 years freelance writing long-form narrative journalism stories for a foreign magazine, and let me tell you that I wouldn't even consider getting out of the house for less than $1500 per story + expenses. And that's for a short one.
(Oh, and I find Harper's to be the king of general-interest magazines.)
I have some questions about freelancing as it pertains to writing long-form journalism.
Would it be alright if I sent you them via email? My email is stevenj134@gmail.com. Or if you leave your email I'll contact you. Would really appreciate it.
Like stevenj I would also love you hear from you how do you go about freelancing long form in today's day and age. Would greatly appreciate if you drop a line at hardik84 [at] gmail
Well, the founder of Lapham's, Lewis Lapham, was previously the editor for Harper's, so that's something else you might want to check out.
However, I feel that Lapham's is unique in that it picks a single topic for an issue, and then goes into great depth on that topic by interleaving primary sources and analysis.
Lapham's Quarterly is unique, and a pleasure to read and hold, but, to be fair, I wouldn't really call it a magazine. But Lewis Lapham has certainly made Harper's into the most interesting, subversive, funny and whimsical high-brow general interest magazine in circulation. The last few issues, though, have taken a slight dip in quality, so I'm following it with some concern.
Like the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and unlike the Atlantic or the NYT Magazine, Harper's prefers on-the-ground reporting over covering "issues" or "trends". But the writing quality in Harper's tends to be much superior to that of both the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Harper's best features are usually non-mainstream, and even intentionally bizarre stories.
To get a taste of Harper's, take a look at their regular science column, which I find hilarious. Here's the last one: http://harpers.org/archive/2012/10/0084112.
I post it to HN every month but it never gets more than a few votes...
The Baffler is great, but has mostly cultural analysis pieces and almost no original reporting. I think N+1 resembles pretentious college publications, and frankly I find it quite boring, though I may give it another look.
Agreed. You could easily find writers for 3000 words articles if you were willing to pay enough to be worth the writer's time that is spent on researching and writing the article.
Look at BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post's strategies (at least for reporters and news, not for the entertainment parts of their site). They quickly managed to establish themselves by luring big names who people would want to read. It's probably near-impossible to quickly do the reverse.
>Who's going to write it? How about the writers for The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The Economist, The Paris Review, etc. I could fill up the length of a long-form article with names of publications that have long-form writing.
Aren't those guys already writing for those outlets?
Plus, I don't know much about the others, but the Atlantic went from a high quality outlet I've followed for decades, to a lower quality rag, after Bradley lost most of the stuff in 2005. It's online presence, now, is even more abysmal, for people who value good journalism and the old Atlantic.
The real question is, who's going to pay for it? This is like when someone complains that there aren't any good programmers out there, and, P.S., they're paying $25k a year. The article talks about 2000-3000 word articles. At the rate Tumblr's paying, that's $80-$120 per article. Who are they kidding? At those rates, if you're an established writer, you're better off posting to a personal blog and relying on ad revenue.
There have been a few magazines (both online and print) that have recently managed to establish themselves as reputable publications that have good writing. What they've done is pay above-market rates to attract good writers. After all, why would you publish in some no name publication instead of The Atlantic? Tumblr seems to be using the opposite strategy.