This is our last Monday Markets column for 2008, and tonight I’m not going to stick to a specific niche. I have a magazine for homeschoolers, one of interest to parents and kids, and one for people who like to brew their own beer.
From the Web Site:
Home Education Magazine is an award-winning publication for homeschooling families, or for anyone who enjoys living and learning.-* If you’re not familiar with homeschooling, please study our publication before submitting. If you are familiar with homeschooling, you might want to study it anyway, as our primary focus is unschooling, and we take an active political stance for empowering families.
General article length is 900 to 1,700 words, but we do occasionally accept longer articles. We prefer completed articles to query letters. Unless your query is clearly not about homeschooling, you will be asked to submit the completed article. Samples of previously published material are not necessary.
Any topic of interest to homeschoolers will be considered. Please be aware that we have the most widely diverse readership in the homeschooling community, and our content reflects that diversity. We do not run articles that preach to homeschoolers from an “expert” perspective nor are we looking for articles that bash the public school system. We prefer articles that outline a problem your family has faced and solved (solving is necessary), stories about successful learning adventures, information that will help other homeschoolers (college application, cooperative classes), project-oriented articles with specific suggestions for readers to follow, musings on life as a homeschooler, new developments in the homeschool community, articles from a particular perspective (single-parent, dad, grandparent) or any other topic that encourages or gives fresh, new ideas.
We welcome articles from inexperienced writers, especially mothers with homeschooling experience. Regardless of what you were taught in high school English classes, writing is nothing particularly mysterious. It’s only another form of communication. If you can clearly explain your ideas to a friend, you can write a good article for our magazine. Our voice is from homeschoolers to homeschoolers, so you don’t need to be an education expert or an English major to write for us.
Your article must hook the reader from the beginning. If we’ve read the same thing a thousand times on the Internet, we don’t want to read it in a magazine. Your writing must be clear, interesting and concise. Decide on a topic and stay with that topic. We get lots of “here’s how homeschooling looks in my family” articles. We love the topic, but we can only take the best of those and even some good articles are returned to their authors just because we receive too many on that topic. Find a way to say it that will make our readers want to savor every word.
Pays $50-$100 for feature articles.
Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine
From the Web Site:
Brew Your Own is designed to meet the needs of the more than one million homebrewers in the U.S. Our mission is to provide practical information in an entertaining format. We try to capture the spirit and challenge of brewing while helping our readers brew the best beer they can. Brew Your Own is published bi-monthly from January to August and monthly from September through December.
Brew Your Own is for anyone who is interested in brewing beer, from beginners to advanced brewers. We seek articles that are straightforward and factual, not full of esoteric theories or complex calculations. Our readers tend to be intelligent, upscale and literate. They appreciate good writing and a sense of humor, but not to the detriment of content. Whether intended for the extract brewer or the all-grain brewer (or the many readers who use both methods), any article that appears in Brew Your Own should contain accurate information, useful tips and shortcuts, balanced evaluations, and an inviting approach.
Accuracy and consistency are extremely important in all of our articles. All articles are reviewed by our editorial board, made up of professional brewers and advanced homebrewers, and articles might be returned to the author for revisions. Length is generally 1,500 to 3,000 words.
Articles published in the magazine fall into the following categories:
Recipes
Each issue contains at least one feature that offers tips, techniques and recipes for brewing a particular style or category of beer. The recipes offer ingredients and instructions for all-extract, partial-mash and all-grain techniques.
Homebrewing Techniques
Each issue contains several how-to articles that focus on various brewing techniques and methods. We’ve also published shorter articles on such topics as dry-hopping, lautering, priming, bottle conditioning and yeast harvesting.
Brewing Science
We also run occasional articles on brewing science and related technical topics.
Brewing Equipment
Each issue contains at least one article on how to build or use a specific piece of brewing equipment. Some examples of articles have covered propane burners, brew-kettle spigots, counterflow wort chillers, lagering refrigerators and water-treatment systems.
General-Interest Features
We occasionally publish non-technical features about beer and brewing. These include interviews, historical pieces and articles about the latest brewing trends. Each general feature must have a homebrewing angle. Beer recipes should be included whenever appropriate. These features are meant both to inform and entertain, and writing style is especially important. Length is generally 1,000 to 2,500 words.
Regular Columns
The columns (Tips from the Pros, The Replicator, Style Calendar, Help Me Mr. Wizard, Projects and Techniques) are written by regular contributing columnists. However, we welcome any suggestions for topics or new columns.
Homebrew Nation
This is a section of short first-person brewing stories and photos of homemade equipment submitted by our readers. No fee is paid for these.
Last Call
The last page of the magazine serves as an open forum for our readers. We are especially interested in first-person stories about brewing. These articles should be 600 to 750 words. We pay $75 for a “Last Call” essay.
Pays $25-$200, depending on length and complexity, on publication.
From the Web Site:
Editorial Calendar
In addition to the topics below, we also accept seasonal submissions. So we are always interested in a Valentine’s story for our January/February issue. Notice our double issues (listed below) and submit seasonal things well in advance.January / February
Camps, New Year Health & FitnessMarch
Camps, Summer Fun, More campsApril
Baby & MaternityMay
School selection, school issuesJune/July
Birthday PartiesAugust/September
Back to School, After School Activities and IssuesOctober
Women’s Health, Outdoors, Fall FunNovember
EducationDecember
Pediatricians, Holiday FunStyle
Our tone is conversational. Write as if you were telling a neighbor all about the topic of the article. “English Lit” language is a little stuffy for us. If you use “laceration” when you mean “cut,” you’re over-doing it!Is it ever appropriate to use rhetorical questions? No! Never. Especially as a mechanism to move your article to the next topic. If your article is a series of questions and answers, please send me a draft early on, so we can discuss other ways of approaching the topic.
Avoid “personal essays.” Our columnists write from a first person view-point–our feature articles should almost always be third person. Thus, do not write about your own experience, but interview other people who can tell the story. If there’s a mix, call me and let’s discuss it. I can almost always find ways to get other people quoted as well as the authorial voice.
ALSO: Decide on your point of view before the article. It’s not good to write in 3rd person and then suddenly I inserted an author’s first-person point of view. Very disconcerting for the reader.
Don’t describe the writing process, such as, “After interviewing several moms for this story, the answer became clear, child-proofing a home is critical.” Simply start the story.
Articles must be very tight–never to exceed 1000 words, but 700 is even better.
To increase your chances of acceptance, think in terms of your topic and our readers–what are the local implications for parents sending their children to day care, school, summer camp? What local programs/assistance can make life better? What does the average area parent need to know on this topic?
Pays on publication, plus 30 days.
