HomeARC ML 0156B
"ADVICE ON PUBLICATIONS"--MO March 17, 1972 NO.156B--DO
Copyrighted March, 1972 by The Children of God
P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936
TIPS ON WRITING--HEADLINING--AND PICTURES
1. WE'RE THRILLED WITH YOUR NEW NATION NEWS MAGAZINE and get so fascinated by it that we can hardly put it down! The illustrations and photos make it all the more attractive and interesting, and if you'd get the Colonies to send you in better originals in blacker type and more contrasty photos you'd be proud to give it to almost anyone!
2. They also need to get some new typewriter ribbons and send the originals to you or the printer instead of carbon copies. Deb asked them to send me the originals, which was nice but a mistake, as you need them for printing and duping. They ought to send the originals to you or whoever is going to make the stencils whether you or Deb or both, and then send only the first or second copies to us.
3. Even those who have no Typewriters can make good copies with a ballpoint pen and a little pressure!--I used to write all my reports that way every week for nearly fifteen years! And with the number of Colonies we're having there are apt to be quite a few without typewriters for awhile!
4. A COUPLE MORE SUGGESTIONS: INSIST ON BRIEFER SUMMARIES FROM SOME, instead of those lengthy daily logs!--ALSO MORE SPECIFIC HEADLINES MORE DESCRIPTIVE OF THE ACTUAL EVENT OR NEWS rather than those generalities like: "Light in the midst of darkness", or "So and so gets a Double Portion", "One Heavy Week", "Top Leaders Visit", "Faith Trip". BE SPECIFIC: "Light in London Blackout", "Cranbrook Asks Us Back", "Josh, Faith Visit", "Chat to Knox by Faith! "--etc. You or they can probably do better. GET THE FACTS INTO THOSE HEADLINES!--NOT JUST GENERALITIES, NO MATTER HOW MEANINGFUL, like: "Message Gets Out".--We know the message is getting out--that's our main business, and if it's not getting out, you shouldn't be in the Revolution!
5. BUT WE WANT THE HEADLINE TO GIVE US THE CUE AS TO WHO GOT IT OUT WHERE OR HOW!--Even if they have to make a double headline! As one famous journalist use to say, EVERY NEWS STORY SHOULD TELL: WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHO? HOW? and WHY? if possible!--And you should GET AS MANY OF THESE IN YOUR HEADLINES AS POSSIBLE! Note the newspapers and learn a lesson from them!--They sometimes even have to take two or three lines for headlines to give the barest gist of the item!--So you don't have to read the whole thing to find out unless you're particularly interested in that subject.
6. THESE ENLARGED HEADLINES COULD THEN BE USED IN THE NEW NEWSLETTER condensed statistical chart and save lots of time and space and labour! Imagine what a time-saver it would be in reading both your NNN and in making up the Newsletter headlines!--All the girls would have to do is enter the Shepherds Report's statistics in the appropriate columns and select the most important or interesting headline from each Summary!--They wouldn't have to be journalists writing an additional story! They have enough to do without that, and will have more as we grow!
7. A LOT OF YOUR FOLKS ARE DOING GREAT ON THIS, AND WE SEEM TO HAVE A BUNCH OF BUDDING WRITERS IN MANY COLONIES WHO'RE REALLY INSPIRED! But we need to continue to try to ABBREVIATE, CONDENSE AND SIMPLIFY if we are ever going to get the job done, or your NNN is soon going to look like Sears Catalog or the New York phone book!--And then no one will have time to read it, much less publish it!
8. Of course, some are using Deb's topical form not as an outline but as actual headlines, which therefore tell us nothing except to classify the news item in separate categories, which is fine if you have time to read them all! But what they should be doing is to at least follow each with the actual headline of the specific event of that week, to NOT ONLY CLASSIFY EACH ITEM, BUT SUM UP THE FACTS IN THE HEADLINE: "Unusual Visitors"--CBS cameramen Event Of The Week: Big Move To Petra!--etc. What's the use of classifying the categories if we still have to dig through the whole item to get the main facts! THEY SHOULD NOT ONLY PUT THE SUBJECT IN CAPS, BUT ALSO THE HEADLINE!
9. AND, SPEAKING OF HEADLINES: HOW ABOUT INCLUDING EITHER THE WORLDWIDE STATISTICAL TOTALS ON THE FIRST PAGE OF EVERY NNN WITH A WORLDWIDE SUMMARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS EVENTS OF THE WEEK throughout the whole worldwide Revolution!--Or maybe just reproduce the entire new Newsletter statistical chart as a first page!--Not the cover but the first inside page.--Your covers are beautiful! This would surely make astounding reading of what we're actually accomplishing and keep everybody up to date--maybe even our enemies! There are really no great securities hazards as long as they contain no specific addresses or real or full system names, but just the figures on our actual progress. WHAT BETTER PROOF CAN WE HAVE THAN THE FRUITS!
10. YOUR ILLUSTRATIONS ARE VERY GOOD, ESPECIALLY THE DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES COME OUT CLEARLY, BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO GET CLEARER OR MORE CONTRASTY PHOTOS FOR BETTER REPRODUCTION of your prints. Some of them came through great! I think EVERY COLONY OUGHT TO SEND YOU AT LEAST ONE PICTURE OR ILLUSTRATION OF SOME KIND EACH WEEK, and you could use the best of these in the mag.--This might inspire our photographers and artists to do more and better work!--As I'm sure the mag is already inspiring our writers! Hallelujah! IF YOU DON'T ALWAYS USE THESE ILLUSTRATIONS IMMEDIATELY, YOU COULD KEEP THEM IN A SPECIAL FILE. for later use when needed.
11. Also, PLEASE GET YOUR WRITERS AND ARTISTS TO SIGN THEIR FULL NAMES!--FIRST AND LAST BIBLE NAMES, BOTH! We're getting so many duplicate Bible names like Simon, Corny, Esther, Prisca etc. that it's becoming very confusing. THE KIDS MUST PICK LAST NAMES AND USE THEM, ESPECIALLY DO IT IN REPORTS, NEWS ITEMS, CAPTIONS ETC. We want to know who's who and which who, particularly those in the news and by whom the news is written or illustrated!--We not only need to know who's doing what, but also who's got what talent!--Use and sign those full names!
12. WE'D ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHO'S GOING TO PRINT WHAT!--Who did these last ones?--You or Dallas?--Or both?--I hope you don't try to send anything but samples, negatives or stencils or plates of these publications across the pond, as the postage on literature is too costly. Maybe each of you, both London and Dallas, can make your own stencils or plates from the originals or first copies sent to you and that way split the job: London supply the E. Hemisphere and Dallas the W. Hemisphere.
13. Which reminds me: Why do we see only 4 or 7 pieces of literature listed as distributed by some Colonies in one whole week! This is terrible, if that's all they actually have!--Can't you send them some or they print their own!--They could write more than that by hand! What's the matter with those Colonies!--DON'T THEY KNOW LITERATURE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST, FASTEST AND MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS OF REACHING THE WORLD!
TRANSLATING AND THE ADVANTAGES OF LITERATURE
14. And this brings up the PROBLEM OF TRANSLATIONS: are you getting good qualified translators to do this vital job?--and fast? We'll never make it if we don't get our basic lit translated as soon as possible!--At least the most essential lessons and Letters! THIS SHOULD BE A FULLTIME JOB FOR SOME OF OUR LINGUISTS!--Get them at it now!
15. THIS JOB OF TRANSLATIONS IS ALMOST MORE IMPORTANT THAN INTERPRETERS! ONE TRANSLATOR CAN PREPARE ENOUGH LITERATURE FOR DOZENS OF COLONIES to distribute even if they have no interpreters!-but an interpreter can only be in one place at a time!-Both are needed, but I would almost say that you should now PUT TRANSLATING FIRST EVEN BEFORE INTERPRETING! The surest way of getting these kids taught and trained is to put the letters and lessons in every one of their hands! And that's the surest way of getting the right message out to others also!--Where'd we be today without the Bible! Preachers and teachers certainly didn't give it to us, sad to say!-And even our own are not to experienced, efficient or sufficiently trained themselves to do the best job! We've got to get our lit directly into the hands of each disciple so he can read, study and teach himself if need be, by the help of the Holy Spirit! This could also save hours of unnecessary class time, which can get very boresome and weary under some lifeless instructors we have seen! I'd rather have the kids themselves read my Letters than read the way some I've heard!--Then they could be later explained or reviewed. I've never met or heard Mao and I couldn't have understood him if I had!--But I've read his works and known his thoughts and sensed his spirit through translations of his writings by faithful devoted translators!
16. LITERATURE IS ALSO A LOT EASIER, CHEAPER, SAFER AND MORE ACCURATE to send many places than some missionaries! As long as we have the actual sample lives and colonies in operation somewhere to prove by real examples and genuine living that we're not all talk like some, then we should be able to advertise these samples to the very limit! And literature is the most accurate and widespread way to do it! The labourers compared to the job of the size of the harvest will always be few, but we can multiply their work many times over by giving them more seed to scatter far and wide, seed equipped with an automatic harvester at the end of each tract asking for a decision and giving our address!
17. IT WASN'T MAO'S TEACHERS AND LEADERS WHO DID THE JOB OF MOLDING THE MINDS OF 800 MILLION CHINESE REVOLUTIONARIES! It was his own teaching via the printed page! The teachers were simply seed sowers and scatterers of this seed for years, and the mighty harvest is only now being truly reaped as a result! A few well ordered fields of followers and fighters scattered this seed, but the harvest is the entire population! Personal witnesses and visible living, working colonies bring quick but limited visible results, and are dramatic samples of the ultimate. But seed saturation sowing is more far reaching and will bring a mightier harvest in the long run!--A whole world of youth won by Jesus' love!--Through our literature telling of our example and how it works through the love of Jesus Hallelujah! Amen?
18. These magazines, newspapers, tracts MO gospels, letters, lessons etc. are going to go farther and reach more kids than you or I or all the rest of us put together could ever reach!
19. WE CAN MAKE AND DUPLICATE LITERATURE MUCH FASTER THAN DISCIPLES! And the lit can be made to preach our message and tell of our sample much quicker and in more places and even more accurately than they! We've got to have the samples to back it up and prove it's not all ads, but the ads will go lot further and faster than the samples! And remember: Our main job is to Witness the message even more than prove it! We can do both with loads of disciples with even more loads of literature! So let's get with it in an all-out worldwide drive for more literature! The time is now! Tomorrow may be too late! Write, print and pass it now!
ADVICE ON COPYRIGHTING
20. INCIDENTALLY, I FOUND OUT COPYRIGHTING IS THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD!--ALMOST. All you have to do is have these words printed inside the cover or on the back of the title page or anywhere you want to in the front of the book or pamphlet or tract or letter or lesson or on the front of a picture, sketch or art work or song, magazine or newspaper:
"COPYRIGHTED MARCH, 1972, BY SO AND SO AND SO AND SO"
--just put that word "Copyrighted" with the date, month and/or year of that printing, and the name of either the author or organisation having it printed in or on the front and you've got it made!--You don't even have to have it registered if you don't want to bother: it's just as legal with or without registration-even without this copyright line if it bears the name of the author or publisher or he can prove it's his!
21. BUT IF YOU WANT PROOF AND COMPLETELY FOOL PROOF LEGAL PERFECTION that it's really yours you can register it for a small fee (two dollars) by sending the fee and two copies of the work, together with an affidavit that it was printed in the USA, and an application form obtainable from the Copyright Office to the Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and they will duly register it for you and send you a certificate proving it. (I don't know how it's done abroad.)
22. But this is not really necessary as long as you put the Copyright notice as above in the front of the book or on the front of the work somewhere. If it's a picture or sketch or illustration, to save space you are permitted to use the symbol of a capital "C" with a circle around it somewhere on the front, with the author or artist's name and date. As long as you have this symbol or the word "Copyright" with date of year of publication and the author or artist's or publisher's name, that's really all you need to be protected from someone stealing it or reprinting it without your permission. We could even sue FreeCOG for using and reprinting our Letters or class notes, etc.!--If we want to.
23. Ho and Faith, I'm telling you all this just to explain WHAT WE CAN do in the States FOR PROTECTION OF OUR PUBLICATIONS, as I know Deb will be reading this too for her information. You just have to do the same in London for Europe. I notice by the inscriptions in our little British Collins Dictionary that they bear the same imprint of Copyright identical to the American form on the back of the title page, so that's probably the same procedure in Britain and very likely where we got it to begin with! SO BE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT AND PROCEED ACCORDINGLY IN ORDER TO PROTECT OUR WRITINGS OVER THERE.
24. Since it's probably still best not to use any of our personal names on these publications of ours, YOU SHOULD POSSIBLY USE THE NAME OF ONE OF OUR LEGAL INCORPORATIONS AS OWNERS OF THE COPYRIGHT INSTEAD OF THE VARIOUS AUTHORS. This goes for the Newspaper, Magazine, lessons, Letters, tracts, pamphlets, brochures, cartoon, artwork, sketches, etc. Too bad we didn't know this sooner, but from all I'd gathered from experience with Grandmother's books, it was supposed to be a very involved and complicated process, but this is only this is only if you want it registered. Otherwise it's quite simple I'm amazed, by the way, that, as I just noticed, that stupid publisher of our lasted edition of "Hem" didn't ever print this "Copyright" by her anywhere in the book, nor even the name of the publisher! I can't imagine why, as a Copyright is good for 28 years and can be renewed for another 28, or a total of 56 altogether! Since it was first published in 1938, and I know she renewed it, that gives us, her heirs, to the Copyright, sole rights until the year 1994.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
