4 Tips to Improve Your Chances to Publish in a Magazine.
From a junior editor.
photo by Suzy hazelwood in Pexels.
In the last two years as an undergraduate I became a research assistant. Part of my job with the researcher was helping to manage the research center magazine centered in poetics in art. Often we would reject articles that made this mistakes first:
1.- Misguiding Title
People would often send papers that did not fulfill what was promised in their titles or did not really proposed anything.
Repetition is valuable, and no one expects a new revolution of thought, nevertheless making at least one new point to bring into discussion is vital.
2.- Watch your quotes
Quoting is the spine of a research paper, journalism, etc. Of all the works we rejected few were because they plainly stole words from others, and most because they did not quote properly.
Quotations have a very specific format, whichever you are working with APA, Chicago, MLA, etc. If you are not very skilled there are web pages that explain these formats thoroughly with examples. Even easier, there are web generators of quotations in any style if you provide the name of the author and the book or the ISBN (in the legal page of your book). Be smart and use it.
3.- Read the guidelines
Every magazine, from the largest to the smallest, has a guideline somewhere and it is your job to read it.
The most annoying thing you can do to an editor is to send an article without a clue of the guideliness because this means more work to an already overflowed magazine. What can happen is that your work, -even if it is amazing-, will not even be read.
If you don’t find the guideliness anywhere feel free to write to the contact left in the magazine and ask for it.
4.- Watch your manners
I never understood why, being PHD and researchers, people sometimes would be plain rude writing to the magazine.
There is no harm in asking politely for information. If they have not answered you in a month maybe it is because your e-mail got lost in dozens they get everyday and not because they are ignoring you deliberatedly.
Another annoying thing most do is to adress directly the magazine responsible such as the director. In a magazine there usually are more than 4 people (in a really small magazine) including the main editor, correctors, etc. the last person to read your work will be the director and it will seem like you are trying to skip the lines being an acquantance or friend. In academic magazines that will disqualify you if they do not want problems of nepotism.
So, the next time you want to send something to a magazine, following these tips will most likely get your work read by the main editor.
