Scientific American is oldest continuously published magazine in United States. It has been reporting about developments in science and technology for more than 150 years. A restless inventor named Rufus Porter founded publication in 1845 as a weekly that was titled "The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise, and Journal of Mechanical and Other Improvements."

Scientific American can boast that in addition to likes of Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, more than 120 Nobel laureates have written for magazine. Most of them wrote about their prize-winning works years before they were recognized by Nobel Committee.

Year after year when asked “what would you like for your birthday” I am proud to be among those who respond “another subscription to Scientific American.”

The complete review of Scientific American Magazine, including photographs, can be found online at: http://magazines.canon.org.

©2005 Peach ePublishing, LLC

Jason Canon has authored numerous technical research papers including: photonic switching, gigabit networking, VoIP E9-1-1, and others. He is an expert author for EzineArticles.com. E-mail Jason Canon at jmc@canon.org.

"There are literally tens of thousands of writers out there - and we have a responsibility to help them. We can't do that by paying a half million advance to every author." 

According to Barnard, books will appear in main Pan Macmillan catalogue and would be "very posh books" with ribbon markers, sold at £15. He expected them to become "collectors' items". 

Scott Pack, of Waterstones, welcomes initiative. "I think it's a fantastic idea," he said. "When books are presented to me by publishers they prioritise ones to which they have given large advances. But bestsellers are not necessarily ones that have had big advances. This creates a level playing field." 

Pack believes scheme could be great for spotting new talent, and points to examples of self-published books that found success not going route of conventional publishing.

We think if you've spent years working on your novel with no success in finding an agent, then Macmillan's New Writing Scheme may well bring you success you've been waiting for.

Pros: Once in a lifetime opportunity 20% of Royalties from Sales Creates level playing field for new talent

Cons: MacMillan will acquire all rights to new manuscripts No Advance Paid Possibility sharing of editing costs Less control

More detail about MacMillan New Writing can be found here.