The last time I wrote about Freelance Writing For Popular Magazines, I told you how you could make money by sending readers letters. I also described how to choose genres, assess your potential readership and how to give yourself a writer’s persona (or several different ones) for submitting stories and articles.

Today, I will tell you how to submit your written work as stories and articles to popular magazines. This will not be a ‘writers course’. You can find articles on plot, structure, characterisation, etc,. all over the internet and in many books (and a few articles here in the pages of Writing-Resource). We can talk about actually writing stories at a later date, if you wish. But in the meantime, let’s get started submitting your written work.

The Freelance Writer For Popular Magazines Needs The Following:

  • Loads of good quality paper to print out your stories. Not the ‘top quality’ (It can be too thick), but very close.
  • A good printer. If your article is hard to read because the print is faint, why should an editor bother?
  • You may also want to make yourself a letterhead to look more ‘professional’, but this isn’t strictly necessary (and you would need one for every different ‘persona’).
  • Good Quality A4 envelopes, lots of them. You will probably be posting your story more than once (but see the warning below). You will also want to insert a Return Stamped Addressed Envelope with each story. You may not get your story back this way, but it will prompt the editor to reply to you with an acceptance note, re-write advice, or a rejection slip.
  • Postage Stamps. However, unless you are sure of the weight of your story or article (or if you are posting your copy abroad), you will need to go to the post office and get it weighed and the correct postage applied. Editors will not be happy about paying extra top receive a freelance article which is not covered by postage.
  • Address Labels: the label on the SAE will be to you, so you can make quite a few of these to set you off, but it looks more professional if you also use a printed label with the Magazine’s address, rather than handwriting the envelope you send to them.
  • A Spreadsheet or some other form of record keeping log to record your progress. I’ll write more about this more in a later post.
  • A Filing System. Again explained in a later post.

What type of story or article should I write?

This depends on the demographic of the magazine - the audience they are writing for. You can check out more about this on my previous post about Writing For Magazines

How To Format Your Story Or Article

  • The usual format will be double spacing. Margins should be 3cms at top and bottom and around 3.17cm on the right and left hand sides.
  • Each page should be numbered (usually at the bottom).
  • Each Page should contain a Top Note with: The Story or Article Title on the top left (aligned left) and your name (or pen name) on the top right (aligned right) with the date the story was completed below this.
  • The First page or Front Page

The Body of The Front Page should contain:

  1. Your name and address in single spacing. Two single spaces below this type your contact telephone number with your email address one single space below. All of this should be typed ‘letter style’ on the right hand side and aligned right.
  2. The Title of your story or article in bold. This should be placed around one-third of the way down the page (or two-thirds from the bottom) and centered.
  3. You may wish to write a very short description of the story or article a double space below the title, but keep it very short and to the point.
  4. A double space below the title (or below the short description) you can type ‘A Story By’ or ‘An Article By’ and then a single space below this type your name, also in bold (still centered).
  5. About 2 double spaces below this and left-aligned, you can type your publishing rights.
  6. If you are a British writer you type: Rights granted: FBSR (which means ‘First British Serial Rights’). This gives the purchaser of your story or article the right to publish your writing one time only and you retain the copyright. If they wish to publish the same piece of written work somewhere else (on the internet for example) they should pay you again for this privelidge. Not all publishers abide by this, but it is an important point to establish your copyright terms up front.
  7. Two double spaces down from this, type in your Word Count (ie. ‘Approx 1,000 words’).

The Second Page:
(from now on, everything is in double spacing).

  1. Begin your story or article half way down the page. This allows room for editorial comments to be written at the top.

All other pages begin at the top.

Short Stories:

  • Paragraphs: The usual accepted style is indented paragraphs, therefore it is always better to write your story or article this way.
  • Changes of Scene should have two returns on the double spacing to identify that this is a change in the storyline.

Articles:

  • Articles can be written in the same format as stories, if this suits the magazine’s style. However, some magazines prefer articles with headings, and bullet points or numbers. In the latter two cases, do not indent your paragraphs; all of your writing shouild be aligned left.

At The End Of The Story Or Article:

  • Hit ‘enter’ twice (in double spacing) and then type a line (underscore) in the center of the page.

Your story or article is ready for submission… except for:

The Cover Letter:

  1. All short stories and articles should have a cover letter. This will be set out in single spacing. It should contain the address of the publication (with the editor’s name if possible) aligned on the top left. The top right of the letter should contain your name, address and (2 spaces below) your telephone number and email address, all aligned right.
  2. The remainder of the Cover Letter will be aligned left.
  3. Hit ‘return’ about 4 times and type the date.
  4. Hit ‘return’ a few times more and type your salution (usually addressing the editor by name).
  5. Hit ‘return’ twice more and type your short letter of introduction. Double return between paragraphs (but not too many).
  6. Double return and type ‘Yours sincerely’ (no capital S on sincerely).
  7. Hit return 5 or 6 times more and type your name.
  8. Hit return twice more and type ‘Encl:’

Here is an example of a covering letter to an editor:
(And apologies - I cannot get the spacing to work in wordpress - you will have to add this yourself to your letter)

Dear Mary Bloggs

Please find enclosed a short story of approximately 1,000 words entitled ‘THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL’, which I hope you will find suitable for The Weekly Gossip’s ‘5-minute fiction’ slot.

I have enclosed a S.A.E. for your convenience and look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Enid Jones

Encl:

That’s your cover letter done. All you have to do is sign it. You are ready to post your first piece of written content to a popular magazine.

Important Notes:

  • Never be tempted to submit your written copy to more than one magazine at a time. You are giving the editor First British Serial Rights (or something similar, according to country). This means the magazine can publish this particular article or story before it is published anywhere else. You can only offer these terms to one editor at a time.

    When you begin writing for popular magazines this will take patience. You have just submitted a great story and you want to see it published ASAP. You want to make some money from your writing too. Nevertheless, you have to wait.

    While you are waiting for the editor’s decision, write more stories and articles and send them off to other magazines, or even the same magazine if their editorial policy allows this (many do not). The Successful Freelance Writer is constantly writing new stories and articles anyway. So be a little patient and you could be rewarded.

  • Do not staple your pages together. Use a paper clip. Many editors like to read one page at a time amd not have to struggle with a bulky article. Some editors hand out separate pages to their editorial staff. Staples make this difficult.
  • Do not be tempted to place your well-crafted written work in a plastic folder. I know it is tempting to do this (you fear some of the pages will go missing if you don’t), but have you seen an editor’s office lately? There will be piles of submitted stories and articles for them to read through. Plastic folders are slippery and could cause the pile to topple over. Not a great idea to keep on an editor’s good side.

So now you have completed your first submission of writing work for popular magazines. Doesn’t that feel great? All you have to do now is sit back and wait for all that money to roll in for your extremely well-written story or article.

I will write about how much money you can earn from writing articles and stories for popular magazines next time :)