Wait-Did You Read the Guidelines?

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine 

Magazines, publishers and agents have guidelines for submissions on their websites. Yet many times writers don’t pay attention to those guidelines.

In case you are wondering, here are a few examples of Guidelines:

Word count– 1500 words (you send 800 words or you send 1625 words).

Spacing–double space (you single space).

Subjects accepted are: non-fiction (you send fiction).

Family Friendly–Your article has lots of profanity.

Font–Times New Roman (yours is in Arial).

As you can see, each of the major items listed on submission guidelines are not followed by the submitting writer.

What do you think they are going to do with your piece?

I talk to editors with magazines and publishers as well as agents  weekly and they all say writers don’t adhere to their guidelines. Because they have so many articles coming in daily, for the most part they don’t read all the way through the ones who do not follow their guideline rules.

Even after the ones I mentioned above do you know the biggest error writers make? They don’t proof their work. There are words not spelled correctly, grammar is not good, punctuation is left out.

The thing is if you don’t proof and edit your work before sending it off, you are knocking your article out of being considered. Editors will not spend the time trying to read through your article with all the mistakes to see if they want to print it or publish it.

So before you send your next story/article out into the world be sure you proof, edit and read the article.  Then make sure you have followed on the guidelines on submission.

Stack the odds in your favor!