This section contains common reader questions and our answers.

Advertisers, check out our advertiser FAQ. Authors, see our contributor FAQ.

Q: Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine is always free?

Short answer: Yes, MRH magazine is totally free, and will always be completely free.

Long answer: Yes, Model Railroad Hobbyist is a completely free rich-media ezine, and will always be completely free to download and read. MRH content is protected by a creative commons license, which is a new form of copyright that allows the content to be freely distributed as long as derivative use of that content also is free.

This means we WANT you to give copies away to all your friends, and to post content from the magazine on web sites and in forums. We give you carte blanche permission to freely post content from MRH magazine online as long as you also include a link back to this web site in the post.

Our creative commons license says that access to our content is free as long as the place you use our content is also free. You cannot, for instance, use content from MRH magazine in a Model Railroader magazine article without our permission, because that use of our content is not free.

Q: How can you afford to offer a magazine that's always free?

Short answer: Simple. The magazine is paid for by advertising.

Long answer: Model Railroad Hobbyist is completely funded by advertising. The open source software movement has shown that you can make money with "free" stuff as long as you also offer a service someone is willing to pay for.

In the case of MRH, the service we're offering our advertisers is the opportunity to (eventually) reach every model railroader on the planet who is online. Since MRH is a quality publication that's completely free, we expect word of mouth to do it's job well and most model railroaders on the web will download most issues - and why not, since the magazine's free!

Q: Why would I want an ezine full of annoying popup ads, free or not?

Short answer: We don't take annoying ads - and especially not involuntary popups. Period.

Long answer: We don't permit annoying ads with gratuitous animation or popup ads that get in your face while trying to read an article. The last thing we want to do is drive away readers, even if we are free. We encourage either static ads or rich media ads that inform, educate, and truly display the vendor's wares in a helpful light.

For example, imagine a SoundTraxx Tsunami ad with a nice loco photo that lets you try out the sound decoder for yourself. Click on the bell, and the bell rings. Click on the whistle and you get a popup that lets you play the whistle with your mouse or chose whistle sound options. And so on. How useful is that? It's completely possible with a well-designed, helpful rich media ad!

With a rich media magazine, you can click on links in the ad and immediately go to the advertiser's web site. Paper publication advertising can't deliver instant results because it's offline. To get you as an offline reader to complete an action, an advertisier must promote such an amazing offer that you stop what you're doing and go order the product right then and there. Or hope you remember them later. Links in a rich media magazine ads go instantly to the advertiser's web site - making ordering as convenient as it gets!

Since our magazines are posted online for download, search engines will find our keyword-rich content. We will continually be discovered by new online readers and rediscovered by previous readers. Our ever-growing base of high-quality free articles can be linked to by web sites, forums, and blogs, as well as passed around by email. By contrast, articles in print-only publications don't have the sticking power or the viral marketing* potential. Once an offline print article is no longer featured in the publication, it's out of sight.

^*Viral marketing: Word-of-mouth advertising that harnesses the network effect of the Internet and is capable of reaching a large number of people rapidly. The ad audience itself becomes the carrier, hence the term "viral". Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of execution, the relative low-cost (compared to printed publications), the more precise targeting, and the often high and rapid response rate.

Q: You say MRH is a rich media PDF magazine. What's that?

Short answer: Rich media means the PDF is interactive - it has video clips, audio clips, and 3D virtual reality images. If a still photo is worth a thousand words, then interactive video, audio, and 3D images you can spin must be worth a million words! Hence the term, rich media.

Long answer: Adobe PDF documents can contain video clips, audio clips, and 3D virtual reality images you can spin 360 degrees. A virtual reality image, for instance, is very powerful and useful. Imagine being able to look at all sides of a model or to look in all directions at a layout room or prototype scene.

We can also do interactive quizzes or a demo of a DCC sound loco where you press various buttons to play different sounds or even change settings to see their effect. This leaves traditional paper print publications in the dust!

We feel the PDF format has gotten something of a bad rap because print documents formatted with desktop publishing applications and later put to PDF are not designed for easy reading on a computer screen. The portait orientation, for example, makes reading a PDF page on-screen a real pain. You have to scroll around, zoom in, zoom out - it's all very annoying and burns extra mental energy as you attempt to read the document on screen. No wonder most people prefer to read offline on paper!

With Model Railroad Hobbyist (MRH), we've thrown out the old-school print PDF paradigm and started over. MRH uses many new online reading design concepts, and being able to add rich media content really leverages this format to its fullest. The fonts used, the "white" page background color, the way the writing is organized all need to be adjusted from the typical approach. The result is a PDF document that's a delightfully entertaining and educational experience.

Q: How large will a typical MRH issue be? A rich media PDF sounds massive.

Short answer: We're expecting a full-sized issue with 40 pages of articles and columns, plus 20 pages of ads will be about 100 megabytes. We plan to produce two versions - a full version and a lightweight version for dial-up readers.

Long answer: We will be producing two versions of our rich media PDF magazine: a full version running about 100 megabytes and a lightweight version that's less than 50 megabytes. The lightweight version will have more compressed rich media content, so it won't be as nice visually, but at least dial up readers will be able to also download and read the magazine.

For dial up readers, we will make both forms available as split zip files of no more than 5 MB per individual segment (that's less than 15 minutes of download time on a typical 56K dail-up line). However, all segments will have to be downloaded and assembled before you can read the issue.

Our recommendation for readers on a dial up line is to find a fellow model railroader who has a fast internet connection and who lives near you. Have him or her download the full-version issue and burn it to CD for you. Model Railroad Hobbyist is free, so why not? In fact, we encourage you to burn copies to CD and give them away.

Q: I'm tired of not having my scale covered. What scale will you focus on? NEW

Short answer: The hobby doesn't need another HO-centric model railroading magazine - our intent is to give all the scales some coverage. To make sure we do this, our table of contents will list what scales each article applies to. At a glance you'll be able to tell how well we're doing!

Long answer: We want to make sure we're not an HO only magazine, so to that end we're listing the scales that our articles apply to in the table of contents. For example, from issue 1:

• The story behind the Bear Creek & South Jackson (HO)
• Modeling the steel business on your model railroad (G - O - S - HO - N - Z)
• N-scale decoder installations (N)
• How sharp is too sharp? Powerful new curve radius insights that work for any scale (G - O - S - HO - N - Z)
• Part 1: Track planning on computer using 3rd Planit (G - O - S - HO - N - Z)

Of the 5 feature articles, 2 are scale specific (only one is HO), while 3 apply to all scales.

We're also looking for contributing editors to be columnists for scales other than HO, so if you know of anyone who might be interested, send them our way!

Keep in mind that publishing articles for the other scales is a supply and demand problem. While our heart may be in the right place - we can only publish articles we're getting!

Q: This is great! How can I help spread the word?

Short answer: Email all your modeling buddies. Post about us on forums or in your blog. Include one of our banners (below) on your web site or in your signature.

Long answer: The more readers we have, the more advertising dollars we'll get, and the more likely Model Railroad Hobbyist will grow and flourish as a rich media hobby resource that's free!

Email all your model railroading buddies and tell them about us - make sure and include our URL in your email:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com

Post about us on model railroading forums or in your blog. Or start a blog here on our site - and then tell all your friends about it!

Put one of our banners on your web site, or include one of our banners in your signature:

Next up: Do I need an internet connection to read MRH?