Published Boasts

I’m often asked by both models and photographers on what my opinion on people who post the amount of times that they’ve been published. So the next few lines are just my opinion based on my views on this whole publishing bragging rights. In my humble opinion you’re only as good as your last viable publication. What I mean is that your last published work should be one that propels further not keep you stagnant. I see a lot of models and photographers saying I’ve been published X amount of times yet what they don’t share is that the publications they’re appearing in are small regional mostly online only or mag-cloud magazines. Which I’m not putting down but the whole idea of being published is to gain exposure to brands/companies that want to hire you for paid work. And if the publication you’re in has a limited/restricted audience then no matter how many times you appear in it won’t benefit your career much.

Now I will say that having tearsheets can help a model show her body of work (no pun intended) to an agency in hopes to get more work just as it can help a photographer show their works much in a way a portfolio can do but with tearsheets it’s basically a reference of having your body of work displayed for a larger audience.

So unless you’re published in a national or better yet globally publication I really don’t see how being in the same regional magazine several times can help your career, I mean no one is seeing your work outside of that particular region. Now this next one is for the models as many post on their social media profiles I’ve been published X amount of times in hopes to convenience the world that they should be paid a commanding rate because of being published X amount of times.

There is a difference in appearing in a magazine as a model. If you’re in a magazine related to eye candy aka visual pleasure then you are promoting yourself and many publications WILL NOT pay you to grace their pages, the only exception is if your brand is so freaking huge that the publication will notice a major jump in their subscriber base and trust if Kim K didn’t get a dime for her bare ass on the cover of Paper magazine then I strongly doubt many will get paid on these small magazines out here.

Now if you are hired as a model to promote a brand then the company whose brand it is will most likely be the one paying you. And that’s where the money is (again remember this is IMHO). Because the company is hiring you to wear, display and promote their product which in turn will inspire the buying public to open their wallets and purses and purchase that product. And hopefully cause other companies to want to hire you to promote their product/services. Now don’t get me wrong there are plenty of eye candy models making a nice living off showing their lovely curves. But best believe it’s not as huge as you may think.

Many models learn early on that they must use every ounce of exposure to promote themselves for things outside of modeling. Many desire to become actresses, singers or entertainers. Those are the ones who may use the eye candy modeling to obtain hosting gigs for industry parties many have even parlayed their exposure to guest appearances on mixtapes, videos etc. If anything please know that just saying you’ve been published X amount of times means very little to those who may hire you. What they look for is how your image benefited the magazine or brand you was pushing.

Now for the photographer who says they been published X amount of times… I think the only people who care about that are new models hoping to gain exposure. I never heard of any photographer getting hired for a major campaign because they were published X amount of times. What I will say is that like the model who promotes a brand companies look for those photographers whose work has helped propel a brand whose skill level will best show that company’s product to the masses. And quite honestly I don’t know of many companies who look at how many times a photographer has been published in mag-cloud publications to hire said photographer.

So to sum this up (and remember this is IMHO) the only people who care about how many times someone has been published are those taking about how many times they’ve been published.

And before you say it yes as with EVERYTHING there are exceptions to this and some have seen great and awesome financial success with saying how many times they’ve been published (insert sarcasm here).