Coin Find Articles In Coins Magazine

I have not told him anything yet but that is what I expect to tell him....it has been 5 months and there is an article (for instance) in there this month that references a find that occurred after his article was submitted so obviously there is more to it. You are right, I am not 100% sure what the real explanation is but I am not going to paint a rosy picture for him or make excuses....the reason they haven't published it is irrelevant but they could have at least notified me that they were not going to instead of raising his hopes. He runs to the mailbox all the time looking for the new issue and for what? No reason to contact them....they obviously aren't going to publish it which is all that matters. I suppose it is my fault, I should have never suggested he write to them.

Did you get a letter from the magazine saying they would publish his article? I'm not really clear about what happened.

I went to the magazine's site and there doesn't appear to be a regular column about coin finds.

Just guessing here but it sounds like it would be a very short article -- or what an editor would refer to as 'filler'. Those get published if and when they don't sell enough advertising and they have space to fill -- or maybe another article is too short and they have the space.

I worked in editing for years (and years) and I knew a lot of writers who got paid and who wrote on assignment and still didn't get published. The magazines just wanted to own the 'filler' in case they needed it some day.

If your son wasn't paid and you didn't sign an agreement on his behalf, he still owns that article and can try submitting it somewhere else.

Mostly, your son should know that their decision to publish has nothing to do with quality or content -- it's all about revenue. Paid ads will always come first.

I'm sorry your son is so disappointed but I can tell you from experience (granted it was mostly in fiction) that a lot of writers will get over 100 rejections before their first story or article is published.

Meanwhile, he should keep a nice copy of the article for himself and I hope he continues to enjoy coins and writing.

Guys thanks for the responses.....and I should be clear that this is a short article that is not something that would be published anywhere else, just something to describe what he has found in circulation. The column is normally only one page long and has 2-3 articles a month, that's it. It's not that I want to get it published for him, he was just reading the finds one day and I told him he could write about what he found and they would probably publish it in that column, so he did. I do not know what their policy is (ie, do they usually publish everything or not, etc), but I figured most/all of the submissions would get published. I have rarely seen the enthusiasm in him that I saw when he was writing it and at his age he doesn't usually stick to anything for long. I'm not losing my interest in the hobby but I'm afraid he will.

Guys, after thinking abt it I decided to contact them this morning and already have a response. They are going to publish it, they just have to set them up according to length so they all fit on the page which is why it often takes a while til they are published. FYI, he also mentioned they try to publish all submissions.

I am also going to take the advice of Andrew99 and set his own profile up. He likes reading some of these threads - and then starts driving me nuts to take him to the bank for rolls, etc. He is also a CoinStar nut as I have mentioned in previous posts.

I submitted a story last year, they were complaining about needing stories, it took 3 or 4 months to be published but it made it. You will probably forget about it, then surprise!