Who Writes for “The Magazine”…Lately?

Back in May, I looked at who was writing for The Magazine. At the time, the data collection was labor-intensive (The Magazine didn’t have author pages yet), and I was trying to figure out who was returning to this publication to write again.

So why did I care? Mainly because I wanted to be near the top of that list, and I was. But since that analysis in May, things have changed quite a bit.

Top Contributors (By Number of Articles)

As of August 20, 2013:

1. Lex Friedman, 6
2. Alison Hallett, 4
3. Chris Stokel-Walker, 4
4. Glenn Fleishman, 3
5. Chris Higgins, 3
6. Eli Sanders, 3 (in one issue)
7. Jason Snell, 2
8. Daniel Rutter, 2
9. Marco Arment, 2
10. Dan Moren, 2
11. John Moltz, 2
12. Serenity Caldwell, 2
13. Mark Harris, 2
14. Chris Breen, 2
15. Marco Tabini, 2
16. Mark Siegal, 2
17. Erin McKean, 2
18. Gabe Bullard, 2
19. Brittany Shoot, 2
20. Nancy Gohring, 2
21. Joe Ray, 2

A note on ordering in the above: I ordered first by number of articles, then by seniority (the latter defined as who appeared first in The Magazine). I also don’t include any of Glenn’s Editor’s Notes or the introductory essay. If you want the raw data, contact me.

What’s New?

If I compare this to the old list, here’s what jumps out:

1. Lex Friedman is still on top. In May he had 5 stories, now he has 6. He’s beatable. He’s slowing down. Still, his performance is impressive.
2. I’m way down the list. This is most interesting to me, obviously, but I went from #2 to #5 mainly because…
3. Alison Hallett & Chris Stokel-Walker are killing it. Alison appeared on the previous list, but Chris did not. While I was out watering the garden, they were writing the words.
4. The list is much longer. Previous there were 12 writers who had contributed two or more stories. Now the list has swelled to 21. The total number of writers who have contributed any stories is 86 (!) and we still see issues penned wholly by first-time contributors.

What Now?

I intend to keep climbing the ladder (stay tuned for next week’s issue). I may be the only person keeping track, but I feel that I’m in good company on that (growing) list above. We’re closing in on the one-year anniversary of The Magazine — it’ll be interesting to see where things sit at that point.

It’s also important to emphasize that, like I said above, there are a lot of first-timers showing up in the overall author list — the ratio of one-time contributors to repeat contributors is roughly 4:1. This means that you should pitch a story idea without fear that if you’re not established you won’t have a place. The Magazine is still very young, and there’s a tremendous opportunity here to connect with an audience — while retaining valuable rights to your work.

Oh yeah, and there’s a Portland, Oregon meetup on September 18th. I’ll be there, along with my new nemesis colleague Alison Hallett and lots of other writers and designers. Come to there! Drink the drinks!