FREE – An editor’s guide to submitting, for authors

I just realised that, due to work pressure, editing, writing, teaching martial arts, being a good husband and father and other things, that I haven’t blogged for over a month. This is shocking, and for that I apologise from the bottom of my heart.

So, I thought that with this blog I would give authors an incite on how to submit, and how to give themselves a good chance of being successful.

1) Read the submission guidelines.
2) Ensure that you understand the guidelines.
3) Read the guidelines again.
4) Write a story that adheres to the guidelines.
5) Read the submission guidelines.
6) Format according to the submission guidelines.
7) Run a full spell check. Then look for spellings that are correct, but which are the WRONG words. Spotted my mistake above?
8) Ensure that you have followed the guidelines.
9) Have someone you trust and who is honest to read through the story and give you feedback.
10) Run all the checks again.
11) Submit

As editor for the Raus! Untoten! anthology, I have found myself getting incredibly frustrated with people’s inability to follow the guidelines, despite me putting them up clearly on the event, posting lists of undead from different cultures and answering all the questions I possibly could.

To expect me to format the document for you is disrespectful. Have have me read through nearly 5000 words whilst I wait to see how your story is going to build into something that follows the guidelines is disrespectful. To not even bother to do a full spell check and grammar check is disrespectful.

So, if you want to completely fail, never get published and waste everyone’s time. Don’t follow the guidelines above.