TFH pays very little, I have not bothered honestly to try and deal with them. Most of my pro work has been with Bowtie publications, thanks to Gary introducing me to the editor. It's very iffy and a lot of work for very little reward. I will submit 25 photos based on their needs and MAYBE will get one published. Sometimes it seems to me that the people putting the publications together are still working with archaic equipment and still prefer slides to digital images, even if the images are of high quality. There are a few consistently great photographers working for the mags, (and some are here on this site, of course, like Gary and Tony) but there are also quite a few photos that make me go "ugh" when I see them.
The most success I have had, happened outside of US. Publications in other parts of the world (specially Asia) care much more about photography than US publications. I have tried to talk to the editors and change this but they seem to have the attitude that it does not matter how good the photo is as long as they have "a" photo. Hopefully that will change eventually.
I have always wanted to show my photography in magazines. It was a dream of mine since I started subscribing to TFH and other mags. Having accomplished it many times over, I am glad I have a "real job" and do not rely on this as a source of income. I have some very interesting stuff in the works in the next few months with FAMA that, if it happens, will be a nice milestone, but I am not relying on it in any way.
If you would like to see my recent work that has been published, visit my site at
http://egfoto.com and click on "In Print"
). The article sure pays better than selling the photos but I get a real kick out of seeing my images in glossy print.