My experience submitting a magazine article
Hello, everyone.
Haven’t blogged in a while. To the…four people who follow my blog, you must be quite surprised. So, during October 2017, I had submitted an RPG article for the Dark Times Fanzine for Horror RPGs. It was an article on using Qi in a Call-of-Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, adding in a few of my homebrew rules for running a Wuxia-flavoured game. Which, I had the guilty pleasure of running once.
Here’s the link if you’re interested.
There’s a few pieces of advice that I would like to give to people interested in submitting articles for magazines.
#1- Formatting, it is important.
About three or four years ago, back when I had submitted an article to a magazine for the first time, I wasn’t very good at it. You see, I had sent it with whatever the default formatting that my word-processor used. I’ll admit that I didn’t even bother to check the formatting guidelines and had just sent it as is.
…Thinking back, that wasn’t the cleverest thing I had done. I ended up being rejected by the magazine, and in the email, a link to the formatting guidelines of the company was attached. A clean, neat presentation goes a long way to make your work that much more appealing to editors. As a struggling writer, I cannot tell you how many submissions I send in a month and how many writing projects I’m juggling, I imagine many writers are out there desperately sending in submissions and drafts as well. In order to stand out, I think the least you could would be to check the formatting guidelines of the company that you’re submitting to and offer minimal respect to telling that at you had the decency in you to at least read the submission guidelines.
If you’re can’t their submission guidelines, then it’s generally a good idea to play it safe and ask; failing that, just refer to the Standard manuscript format.
#2- Maintain regular contact with the editor
Writing is a cooperative job. Being a writer means that, ultimately, you’re going to have to listen to someone else’s opinions and follow a deadline. The best way to make sure everyone is happy in a situation like this is to maintain consistent contact with the editor. Communication is key.
Editors have to make sure that there’s no grammar errors, no inconsistencies, and also to make sure the theme of an article can fit the theme of the magazine. Ultimately, explaining the direction and the rough idea of the article to the editor is generally a good way making sure that everyone’s on the same page. It is also a good way of making sure that you can meet your deadlines. While there’s no guarantee that you can meet the deadline, but if you could explain to the editor in advance that, due to some unforeseen complications, you couldn’t make the deadlines, they’re going to be more likely to offer to put your article on-hold for the next issue rather than just sending an email at the last minute with a cheap explanation.
#3- Proofread before you send it off
It’s difficult being an editor, checking through article after article for grammar errors and inconsistencies. Make your editor’s job easier by checking through your submission first and make sure that the margin of mistake have been dialled down to the minimum. Reducing the number of back-and-forth draft exchanges could make things more efficient and make everyone involved feel much happier rather than just sending off an unchecked draft for the editor to fix.
Conclusion
Work with your editor, and listen to what his opinions are. There’s always room for polite disagreements, but giving people respect and follow the publisher’s submission guidelines would almost always make sure that you’re going to have a higher chance of getting another article published by them again.
