cj#687> Seeking larger audiences…

1997-06-23

Richard Moore

Dear cj,

One of our cj subscribers wrote to me privately:

>I was greatly impressed by your 3-part article on the NWO and China.  There
>is a need to 'market' your writings, disseminate them in a systematic
>manner. I don't know how. One problem is that their reading requires an
>unusual level of sophistication, prior knowledge and interest in the issue.
>There are not so many people fulfilling these requirements. It would be
>helpful if someone, with a journalistic talent, would be able to edit and
>popularize your text in a more accessible manner. If a payment can be
>offered, I have someone in mind who might be approached and asked to write
>some op-ed articles based on your paper. The person might also be ready to
>do this without payment but as it is a free-lance journalist living from
>writing, this wouldn't be fair.
>
>All the best,

My response to this message is below.  I also ask the rest of you for
suggestions regarding reaching more people with the kind of material
published on cj.  For one thing, I invite you tell your friends and
associates about cj - we've currenlty got 660 subscribers, growing by more
than one person per day, but there's plenty of room for lots more.

rkm

---

Dear xxx,

This is one of the most exciting suggestions I've heard in a long time.  My
real mission has to do with ideas and analysis, and whatever skill I've
developed in writing has been in service of the ideas, not due to any
native writing talent or pre-disposition.  A job as a tech writer or
generic journalist, for example, would not appeal to me even if I could
succeed at it.

Let's talk about the situation of your journalist friend.  He, like any
other journalist, is perfectly free to take my ideas (or anyone else's) and
write his own article - no permission from me would be required.
Journalism has quite different rules than academic publishing - where ideas
themselves must always be credited.  In fact I'd be personally gratified -
and my mission would be advanced - if legions of writers began using my
ideas in this way (:>).  It wouldn't advance my own need to earn a
livelihood, but that's not relevant, as I haven't made money from political
writing so far anyway.

Another possible arrangement would be for your friend to act as a ghost
writer: I pay him, he revises my material, and I publish under my name.
But this doesn't seem like a very suitable arrangement.  I'm not a famous
person whose name would sell articles, and I'm not particularly skilled at
finding publishers - so having me as named author wouldn't add much to the
success of the endeavor.  And there's not enough money in non-fiction to
pay a ghost writer.

An arrangement I would welcome - and which could be applied to other
articles - would be for your friend and I to be joint authors of articles:
I write the original analysis; he revises into one or more op-ed pieces; I
review his pieces and we resolve differences in desired content and style;
he (as professional journalist) takes the lead in finding publishers; we
publish under a joint byline (a not uncommon practice) and split whatever
fees/royalties are paid.

Please get back to me on this, as reaching larger audiences is something
I've been concerned about lately.

Thanks,
Richard



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