See that big stack of papers right beside her monitor? In my case, those would be submissions I received for the Bubblin' Brown Sugar Anthology. Yeah, I got quite a few.
So why the frustrated expression? Well I am confused as to why so many writers refused to follow the submission guidelines. They were simple enough so I thought. But maybe somewhere I tangled up my words and wasn't as clear as I'd meant to be. Can you help me?
Must be a Word Document - Help me understand why I received submissions as pdf files. Or maybe you can explain to me why some sent their work in the body of an email when it was clearly noted that the submission would be disregarded. I don't get it. Was I wrong for hitting the delete key on submissions like those?
Send your bio with a photo - Doesn't that sound easy? Apparently not easy enough. If you are going to be showcased in a publication, wouldn't you want people to know that you are YOU and not me? Wouldn't you want to be credited for your work? I received several submissions with no photo . . . or no bio . . . or neither. Sigh. Am I being mean if I trash those submissions?
Double spaced, Times New Roman, size 12 font - Maybe I should do a YouTube video on how to double space a document. Judging from some of the submissions I received I'd probably get like a million hits. Obviously, lots of people don't know how to do this. Either that or they just decided "Nope; I'm going to send it the way I want to send it! With blue boxes to frame things and pretty columns so it looks good on the page. And oh yeah! Times New Roman is blah and bland but this Curlz MT font is so cool and really expresses my poem like I want it to! Forget the guidelines, I'll do it MY way."
I'm shaking my head right now. You don't know how many times I have heard an aspiring author say "I really want to get published but it's so hard! I don''t know what to do!" Well here is a quick and easy tip; start by following the submission guidelines.
0 comments:
Post a Comment