Shape

When it rains it pours in letters land.

As it turns out, my little experiment about sending the exact same gushy letter of praise to both Shape and Self simply could not have worked better. Here are the results:

It’s like a cosmic game of Telephone. I say something and then it appears two months later in completely different forms. If you recall, Self was the one that sent me several emails asking for confirmation and verification of information. They edited beyond recognition. Shape did not acknowledge the letter to editor at all (though they did send me an email about something else), yet they featured an intact letter with happy bold, orange (my favorite color) type.

I suppose the lesson to be learned here is that everyone, even magazines, wants love. And when they get it, they want to shout it from the rooftops.

So I did get some actual correspondence last week in response to something I sent a magazine. This is the letter I got:

Hi, Erin.

- Shape editorial staff

I’m not sure whether this was an auto generated response or a reply from an editorial underling. But for the sake of maintaining a shred of personal dignity with regard to my letter writing campaign, I’m choosing to believe that an underling saw my sunscreen tip (post April 25) and decided that it struck exactly the right note of “well, duh” that Shape readers want to hear. I mean, they’re probably not asking for photos from everyone right?

This photo thing threw me into a total tizzy. I have nearly 60,000 photos residing on my computer right now. 60,000. I am in perhaps 200 of them, Maybe 75 of those were taken in the last three years (a semi-reasonable amount of time to call a photo recent). Guess how many of those 75 are of only me? Two. That’s right, two. Both of which are owned by WDW, and are thus not usable by me. There are maybe 10 photos of me overall that I don’t seriously hate, all of which also include at least one child and/or large costumed Disney character. So I decided it would be OK to crop out the child and/or character that appear in one of these - not an easy task when said child and/or character has his/her hands all over you.

I did end up with one tiny photo that I only moderately dislike, that looks like I actually use sunscreen. I sent it to them and we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I’m going to try to figure out how to get some decent photos of myself.

To run with a theme a moment here … I bought Shape yesterday. In nearly every regard it is indistinguishable from Self. If I had to identify the niche of each, I’d say that the goal of Self is to get you thin and healthy, whereas Shape aims to get you thin, healthy, and HOT (slightly more emphasis on  bikini readiness). The letters sections of the two magazines is identical.  Switch the titles in the letters and there is no way to tell which you are reading. As an experiment, I decided to submit the exact same letter to Shape as I did to Self earlier this week (switching the names, of course.) Seems only fair.

In addition to running letters, Shape also gives readers another chance to get published in its “Readers Speak Out” section. Each month, the editors pose a question and ask readers to write in their tip. The question that ran in the May 2009 issue was, “The snack I always have on hand is …” The not-so-shocking answers: “Apples are inexpensive and always tide me over to the next meal.” “Dried apricots and raw almonds are the perfect pre-workout combo of protein and natural sugar.” OK, what American female over the age 10 hasn’t heard those four or five million times. I’m looking for something new, or at least entertaining, folks. How about, “I consume the contents of my change purse every afternoon. I get lots of trace minerals from the coins, but they pass out of my system completely undigested so there’s no calorie intake at all.”

The new question posed to readers is: “What do you do to slow the aging process?” The not-so-shocking response I sent them:

One word: sunscreen. I only buy facial moisturizers and foundations that have an SPF factor of at least 15, that way I make sure that I am always covered.

Earth-shattering, I know.