General Submission Guidelines
Thank you for your interest in my zines! These submission guidelines are hopefully exhaustive, but if you have any questions, please email me at
Kathryn Andersen (ye Editor)
Submission guidelines revised 25 February 2003
(A) Content
(1) What
Fiction, poetry or artwork.
I aim to keep the standard very high, so don't be surprised if I ask for changes or simply say I don't want something. I may be able to suggest somewhere else to send it, where it will be more likely to be accepted.
Erotica of any form will not be accepted, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual. Stories with non-canonical homosexual relationships in them will not be accepted either. Overly graphic and gory violence will not be accepted. The general rating of my zines is PG but it may go up to M.
(2) Reprints
I will not accept stories that have been submitted elsewhere, and are still in print (or about to be printed). Simultaneous submissions are simply not on. My zines are distributed all over the world and it is simply not fair to the readers to give them something they've read before, elsewhere. And doubly unfair if I think I am giving them something new when I am not. I will reprint out-of-print stories, provided you tell me where it was originally published. I will reprint stories from the net, provided they are exceptionally good. Generally with net.stories, I will ask you to submit it to me, if I see it on one of the fiction forums I'm on, and like it a lot.
Likewise, I won't be very happy if you submit a story to me and then submit it elsewhere while the issue in which it appears is still in print(+). If you absolutely must post the story to the net after you've submitted it to me, and you beg well, then I might say yes, provided you tell me where you're putting it so I can then inform the readers why they've actually seen it before. Lagtime on zine production will guarantee that anything put on the net will appear there long before the zine is actually in print and available.
(+)By "in print" I mean, my print run of the zine has not yet been sold out. When the initial run (which I used to generate the 'tribbers copies) is sold out, then for the purposes of this section, the zine is "out of print", even if issues may still be available from my agents who do their own print runs.
(3) Form
- Artwork should be black&white, and no larger than A4 size
- Fiction should be short stories, not complete blockbuster novels.
At the moment I'm not really considering printing huge door-stops. That isn't to say I won't consider making it a special one-story issue, say, up to 70,000 words, so don't let that stop you from asking if I would like it.
(B) A Note About Errors To Watch For
It seems that some people lack some education in grammar and punctuation. Could you please read over your work carefully before sending it to me: if I have to spend time correcting numerous simple errors, it is really not going to give me a good impression of your story.
When constructing dialogue, remember how to punctuate it. Odd as it may seem, the end of a character's sentence does not take a period if you continue the sentence with 'he said' or anything else. Thus, it must be
"Get lost, Vila," he snarled.
Not "Get lost, Vila." He snarled.
I have no wish to repeat the nightmare of correcting 25 pages of story which had this error all the way through it.
There is also an opposite mistake that people have made. A sentence with speech is still a sentence. It does have to be finished with a period.
"Be quiet, Vila," should be
"Be quiet, Vila." and
"Vila, please be quiet," Cally said, "The dragon is listening." should be
"Vila, please be quiet," Cally said. "The dragon is listening."
Its and it's are often confused with each other, as are your and you're. Remember that its is like his, hers and theirs - possessive, without an apostrophe. It's is like that's, because it is a contraction of it is. Likewise, your is a possessive pronoun, and should not be used in place of you're, which is a contraction of you are.
Computer spell checkers are all very well, but they don't help in cases where the error itself is a real word, such as putting recon when you meant to say reckon.
For your kind perusal, I quote the following poem...
Know More Miss Steaks
I halve a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plainly marks four my revue,
Mistakes I can knot sea.
I've run this poem threw it.
I'm shirr your pleased two no.
Its letter prefect in it's whey.
My chequer tolled me sew
(Katherine Perry and Anonymous).
(C) Format
(1) Text
(a) electronic: email
Email submissions should be sent to the submission address (see above) and preferably sent as an attachment.
The text formats which are acceptable: - plain ASCII text (see below) - Hypertext Format (HTML/XHTML) - plain LaTeX
I used to accept other formats, but it is a great hassle for me to convert them into something I can read, so I'm not accepting them any more.
If you are sending the file as plain text, I require each paragraph to be separated by a blank line, with no indentations. This format is easier for me and my conversion programs to deal with, when I have to import the file into my publishing software. (If it is not in that format, I will ask you to send it again.) I do prefer plain text submissions, particularly if we are going to be corresponding via email about the editing of a story, since versions will be flying back and forth - in plain text. If you do send the file as plain text, I accept the standard net.convention that emphasis is noted by asterisks, and underlining is noted by underscores. Also bold is noted by hashes.
If you are doing your work in a word-processor such as Microsoft Word, and you send me a Word document, I will delete it unread. Please look at the following for instructions on how to convert your MS-Word document into plain ASCII text:
- (method 2)
The (HL) Fiction Formatting FAQ is also full of helpful information on dealing with plain text format.
(b) electronic: disk
Disks should be in IBM-compatible format, 3 1/2 inch floppies. Otherwise the same things apply as for email, above.
(c) paper: snail mail
Typed or printed, single column printed on a single side of the paper. Clear dark ink, not the faded grey remnants of an old dot-matrix printer on its last gasp using draft mode.
But I prefer email or disk, since then I don't need to type or scan it in.
(2) Artwork
(a) electronic: email
If you have access to a scanner, you can send the artwork electronically. I would prefer a resolution of 300dpi, not 100dpi or 75dpi.
Email submissions should be sent to the submission address (see above) and should be sent as an attachment.
The picture formats which are preferred: - PNG, JPG, EPS
The picture formats which are acceptable -- anything which can be converted by Gimp or ImageMagick, for example: - BMP, PCX, PNM, TGA, TIFF, GIF, XBM, XPM...
(b) electronic: disk
Disks should be in IBM-compatible format, 3 1/2 inch floppies. Otherwise the same things apply as for email, above.
(c) paper: snail mail
Send a good photocopy of the artwork, not the original. Nobody should ever trust the post office that much - not so much because they would lose it, but they could very easily damage it, ripping, bending, or getting it drenched with rain. (Melbourne is a rainy city). Write your name (and address) in pencil on the back. (Why pencil? Because pen sometimes shows through and ruins the work).
(D) Contributors Copies
Contributors will receive one copy of the issue in which their work appears, provided their submission adds up to at least one full page of work. For prose, this is about 1200 words; for poetry, something longer than 24 lines; and for artwork, either one full A4-sized illustration, or three smaller ones. For smaller contributions, contributors will get a discount on the issue (if they wish to purchase a copy).
Besides a paper version of the zine, I will also produce an electronic version, in Acrobat (PDF) format and/or HTML, laid out in the same (or very similar) format as the paper version. If such a version is produced, contributors can get a free copy of it, if they request it.