It’s All About The History

Remember the last time you sat around shooting the breeze with a bunch of old pilots? Did you ever think to yourself that somebody should write down all the stories that are being told? Yea, me too. These stories are too good to be lost.
You know, there is a lot of great aviation history out there, a lot of great stories to tell. The unfortunate thing is that probably 99% of this aviation history will never see print. All that 99% that you and I will never get to read will be lost to time. That’s why I started LOGBOOK magazine back in the year 2000.
Two events gave me the basic concept on how to edit LOGBOOK magazine. The first was an article I submitted a long time ago, to one of the “big-time” aviation history magazines The article was ultimately rejected. It was not rejected because of the content, it was not rejected because of the story, rather it was rejected because I submitted it in the incorrect format. My question was - did they even read the story? Did they care about the story, about what was being said? Clearly not. I then wondered to myself - if a 100-year old Army Air Corps B-17 pilot, with 50 missions over occupied Europe, wrote down some of his experiences of his time in combat, would this same magazine reject his stories simply because they were written down in the wrong format? Is the format more important than the story? How much great aviation history is lost because it was not submitted in the proper format?
The second event was an article I submitted, which was eventually published. The trouble was that my article had been chopped up, then almost totally rewritten and over edited to the point where I did not even recognize my own work. I was told they had to cut the length to make if fit around some advertising. If I had known that I would have pulled the article. Let’s take our 100-year old B-17 pilot again, if he needed another couple of words to adequately tell his story, would the editors have over edited his piece - just to make it fit?
So, with those experiences in mind I decided to start my own magazine - LOGBOOK. The entire editorial staff here at LOGBOOK thoroughly enjoys working with all kinds of authors - novice, one-time, first-time, amateur and professional. The story is the most important thing, and we are here to help you get your story in print. We can help with the format, and all the other little details that editors are supposed to do. For example, we published a story a while back submitted by an old Lockheed F-94 pilot. It was a short piece - only a few hundred words - and a great story. It was written in pencil. Clearly not the proper format for some publications, but for us, it was just fine, after all it was the story that was important. So we transcribed it into a digital format, and published it almost word for word.
Also, we make the magazine fit the story, never chopping up a good yarn to make it fit around something else. Yes, the advertising dollar is important, but it is not paramount. We encourage authors to use as many words as needed to fully relate the story they are trying to tell. Our format is flexible enough to make things work.
So, all of this allows LOGBOOK to bring you a lot of great aviation history, stuff that you will find no place else. And, it is a heck of a lot of fun doing it. As always, please feel free to drop me a line anytime - I always have time to talk flying.
Fly Safe,
Dave Powers

P.S. True story:
Way back when I was a youngster Naval Aviator in the U.S. Navy, I wrote an article about flying the mighty Sikorsky SH-3H Sea King off of the boat, back in my fleet days. It was one of the first articles I had ever submitted to anybody, anywhere. Today, I look back on that article and I realize how I had no clue as to the process of submitting an article to a magazine. For one thing, my story was probably five times too long, and perhaps a bit too all-encompassing - I didn’t really know any better. Well, I submitted my story, totally unsolicited, to one of the top aviation magazines in the world - both then and now - namely “Flying.” Clearly, some editor at the magazine took the time to read my work. A while later I received a letter from the editor stating that he liked my article, but that it was too long, and could he concentrate on only one portion of the story. Of course I said yes, and my article The Ritual of the Sub Hunt was published in a later issue of “Flying.” I am still quite proud the way it all turned out.
That is how an editor should work. Do you have a good story to tell - give me a call. I am looking forward to it.