May 17, 2013

Lord High Editor, Part I

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

Once upon a time, I was the editor of a computer magazine. I should write computor magazine, because it was called ComputorEdge, a weekly publication available in San Diego from 1983 through 2007.

I wasn’t always the editor. The magazine wasn’t always called ComputorEdge.

Back in 1984 I was just a year out of college. I wanted to be a writer, so I was writing stuff all the time and sending it hither and thither. Fiction was my first choice, and I was on the cusp of success.

In February 1984, I joined fellow online friends for a parachute jump. (That’s another story.) On the road to Perris Valley, one of them handed me a copy of a local computer magazine, The Byte Buyer. It was like a PennySaver or Nickel’s Worth, but specifically for computers. They were looking for writers.

Being eager, I wrote up an article for The Byte Buyer. It dealt with how computer users in those days loved to one-up each other. To my surprise, it was accepted and published in the April 13, 1984 edition. They wrote me a check for $75. Instantly I was a professional writer.

The Apri 13, 1984 issue of The Byte Buyer, with my article on the front cover.

The Apri 13, 1984 issue of The Byte Buyer, with my article on the front cover.

Like most budding writers, I did the first thing that came to mind: Wrote more articles for The Byte Buyer. Surprisingly, they accepted pretty much everything. They even asked me to write more articles and features.

Eventually, in about 1986 or so, the magazine put me on a monthly retainer to write regularly for them. I had my own column, in which I wrote funny things about computers or nerds or PC culture.

Around that time I was working as a ghost writer for a computer book publishing house. I had acquired a literary agent and was seeking to write my own computer books. So my career was in a good place — even though I still dreamed of writing fiction and being a respectable author.

After I left the computer book publishing house, I experienced the terror of being self-employed. Wanting something more stable, I started sending out resumés, looking for a full time position as a technical writer.

As luck would have it, The Byte Buyer was expanding. They needed a full-time editor to handle the growing editorial tasks. The publisher asked me if I was interested. I accepted.

I didn’t know squat about being an editor. I couldn’t even spell. Magazine publishing was alien to me, although I did have plenty of experience with book publishing.

For the first time in my life, I had a job I thought was really cool. I was an editor of a magazine. Or, as I fashioned myself, Lord High Editor.

2 Comments

  1. ComputorEdge is still available online. I submitted a reader submission article back in the spring of 2002 that got accepted in the San Diego version of ComputorEdge about Open Source software and got printed. That was back when the general public hadnt heard of open source.

    Comment by BradC — May 17, 2013 @ 2:51 pm

  2. Good for you!

    Man, I tell you. It was tough finding good writers. We had a bunch, but never enough to write an entire issue. I ended up writing a lot of the stuff myself, often using pen names. I think there was one issue where the writers never came in on deadline and so I wrote all the articles myself.

    Oh, the stories I could tell, and will tell on Monday!

    Comment by admin — May 17, 2013 @ 2:56 pm

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