It's not what you think. 😇
Magazines are a great way to receive guaranteed payment for a pattern design (unless it "suddenly" goes out of business, but that's another story), and they usually even provide the technical editing for free. Who wouldn't pass that up? especially a new designer that worries she (he) won't be able to attract enough attention to a paid pattern. I think it's a good deal.
But...
Before any patten is sent to the editor, the designer still needs to make sure it's ready for publication (meaning: carefully read through it). Sure, she (he) wrote the thing and knows what it says, so why waste should they waste their time reading it through when it's going to be edited for free? Free! The editor will put it into the correct style, find all the mistakes, put in the punctuation, and whatever else an editor does. Hey, the designer is busy making the sample, weaving in all those ends and then has to send it all in on time, AND write up the pattern.
First of all, it's hard to find all the mistakes when there are 150 of them (including style). Some magazines send the patterns right back to the designers to fix style issues, but it's been my experience that if they didn't take the time to look through the style guide (or a magazine issue) in the first place, they won't after having it sent back to them, and then it just wastes a week of time, which creates a tighter deadline and less time to find the remaining 140 errors.
If I have questions for a designer, I've (almost) always received pretty quick replies that are very helpful either right away or after a bit of back and forth. But, again, this takes time which leaves less time to work on the other designs for the magazine or this design in particular. If it happened to be the last of the lot, the deadline could be tomorrow to get it back to the layout crew. There is a bit of wiggle room in this process, but geez, I really really hate missing a deadline even if it's squishy.
So, yay for free editing (technical and otherwise), but please, before sending in your pattern for publication, check that all the parts are there (did you write up the edging? do you have the legs written out for the amigurumi pattern? did you note where the color changes are to be made? did you check the style guide?). This will ensure that you will have a pattern that's easy to edit, which means that any remaining harder-to-find mistakes are much simpler to find.
And, congratulations at having your design selected, it will be pretty cool if it ends up on the cover!
