Writing... about stamps

I am a writer, for a significant part of my "day job."

A nice mallard duck topical from Iceland

No, I don't write about stamps for a living. That said, I do feel quite passionate about letting the world know that our hobby is still alive and well. With the advent of the Internet and email, there are many out there who might think "Stamp collecting? Does anyone still DO that?"

Although I have written a few articles for the philatelic press (and entries from these pages sometimes appear in print format), most of my philatelic writings are geared towards a NON-stamp collecting audience... or perhaps the person who collected in childhood, but forgot all about stamps when "the opposite sex" became interesting.

It is my hope that these occasional articles-- which my editors in other fields occasionally indulge me by printing-- will help a few newcomers find their way to stamp collecting.

My latest effort is entitled "Did the Internet Kill Stamp Collecting? Not a Chance!" and is really written for a general audience. But I'd like to invite you to go have a look... and if you like it, do please share it to your Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or other social media... be part of keeping stamp collecting strong and active!

You can find other articles I've written about stamps by following the "Stamp Articles" tab in the green bar, at the top of the page.

Writing... for non-stamp collectors

Regular readers of these pages will know that I am not only passionate about philately... I am also passionate about "spreading the word" about stamp collection to people not currently involved with the hobby. I strongly believe that one of the ways we'll keep the stamp collecting hobby going for many years to come is to reach out to those who don't currently collect... simply relying on "former" collectors and parents passing collections to their children is not enough.

Part of what I do for a living is write-- although I haven't written much about stamps, aside from this blog. Recently, I've gotten more interested in the idea of writing "general" stamp articles in an attempt to reach the NON-philatelic press.

The first (hopefully of many!) article was recently finished and has now been posted to a web site I sometimes use to "test publish" new articles. It's a "sand box" of sorts, where I can post articles, invite people to go read them, then fine tune them and get feedback, while having them out there in "public view." If the response is positive-- after revisions have been done-- maybe the article will be "publication worthy."

As of this writing, a couple of editors I work with (on material that has NOTHING to do with stamps) have expressed some preliminary interest.

This first article in somewhat broad strokes covers how stamps came about, followed by a little bit of the history and evolution of stamp collecting, from the 1850's to the present day. It's fairly "light and fluffy," but there's only so much you can say in an "article length" piece. Of course, this is not written for the existing stamp collector, but for the casual reader marginally familiar with the idea that "people collect stamps," or possibly someone who collected stamps as a child and might feel inspired to pull out their old collection from the back of the closet.

Stamp Collecting: The Rise & Fall... and Rebirth of the World's Greatest Hobby

Naturally, any comments and feedback on the article are invited and welcomed. This is just ONE approach-- my hope is to write a whole group of "introductory" articles about different aspects of (introductory) philately-- and with a bit of luck get one or two published in non-philatelic magazines.