[Amgine]

The "content" in magazines, like on TV, is only there to attract eyes which are connected to wallets. The price paid for a subscription is there to defray the cost of publishing, and to refine the target market (IOW: a very expensive magazine is only expensive because it means fewer poor people are going to be reading it, giving the audience and writers a wholly unjustified sense of elitism.)

That said, who here is going to avoid reading another article about anchoring?

There's nothing inherently wrong in writing and rewriting articles about the same basic skills and facts. In fact, I don't think you can work in a specific topic area without doing so. But, as others have pointed out, the quality of the writing must be excellent, and in addition to these base topics a periodical should contain entertainment articles such as travelogues, retrospectives, and introspective "inspirational" pieces - each of which should be of even higher calibre than the informational articles.

And really, honestly, knock off the ad-copy disguised as "new gear reviews". That shit don't fly. I don't care how much you get paid for it.

I know that maritime-related magazines have a huge quantity of over-the-transom submissions. There is a great temptation to troll through the slush pile and pick out better than average writing, pay the author a pittance, and publish it. Professional authors produce better writing, and this is important to us, the audience. Really good and patient editors - the ones who have actually studied english and the writing industry - can develop promising submissions from the slush pile into great quality articles, and maybe even develop promising authors into professional authors, but it takes time and commitment and it's probably cheaper to work with professionals to begin with, though that's not true in the long term.

In short, the kind of magazine most cruisers seem to love and admire is one which is not run primarily for profit, but for the love of cruising and admiration of cruisers. It should have a focus on good quality writing, just as we expect products for cruising to be of excellent workmanship. As has been repeatedly shown by the most popular/collected maritime periodicals, cruisers are more than willing to do without expansive glossy photo spreads. Even though we drool over the images, some of the longest-lasting magazines continue to publish in black and white on near-newsprint, and content is king.