Marking up a magazine - interaction with the editors
Please note: This post was written some time ago (18 years ago). My perspectives, knowledge, and opinions may have evolved significantly since then. While the content might still offer valuable insights, I encourage readers to consider it in the context of its publication date.
Heath has a nice little exercise written up on his blog about marking up a magazine that you love with a sharpie and sending the resulting notes to the editor for their consideration. It is interesting because the idea is to interact with people who normally are in a one way world. The editors are creating something and rarely would receive comprehensive feedback such as the proposed writeup would create. Heath mentions that the writeup should be short and sweet, with three to five primary points. I remember when I worked at world book - we would get some letters that were not necessarily critical of the site - just helping out with the books or giving advice that maybe we didn’t think of.
It is an interesting idea and I know that in my world - if someone wrote me a nice letter with some diagrams and information on how to make my sites better - I would listen.
So get out your sharpies and mark up some magazine - mail it to the editor and look in the forthcoming issues to see if you can see your influence. I bet you will.