Monday Markets for January 25, 2010

Can you believe that January is almost finished already? I don’t know where this month has gone. This week’s edition of Monday Markets has a magazine for tropical fish enthusiasts and one that focuses on Asian American stories. The final magazine on the list is for grandparents. It made the list because the editor actually gives the impression that writers are welcome contributors to the publication. It made a very nice change from some of the guidelines I’ve read.

Tropical Fish Hobbyist

From the Web Site:

Are you a fish expert? Have you ever dreamed of writing for TFH? Submit an article idea today!

Please follow these guidelines in preparing your submissions.

Manuscripts should be submitted as email attachments to associateeditor@tfh.com

Article Content

We are looking for good writing about interesting topics. It is important to be clear, precise, succinct, and organized. We do not pay by the word, so trim your prose as tight as possible.

Be accurate. Research your topic fully. Do not repeat hearsay or opinions; report facts. When drawing conclusions from personal experiences, be sure not to over generalize.

Proofread your material! Check spelling and punctuation. Watch out for homonyms. Use serial commas. Pay attention to restrictive versus non-restrictive subordinate clauses. Keep track of agreement and sequence of tenses.

CHECK SCIENTIFIC NAMES! We often get manuscripts with misspelled or incorrect scientific names. Do your homework and get it right. A good resource for scientific names of fish is www.fishbase.org. For invertebrates and other animals, a good resource is www.itis.gov/index.html.

Hyphen

From the Web Site:

Hyphen has limited resources, but we pay $500 for in-depth, feature stories that carry the theme for each issue. We’re looking for writers who can depart from the predictable daily-news structure and tell a story well, with keen observations and strict accuracy. We welcome investigative reporting as well as literary journalism, thoughtful pieces as well as tongue-in-cheek ones.

We’ve got a bit of a split personality, so we want both fun and serious writing. As long as it’s well written and solidly reported, we’re very open. Bonus points if the story takes place in the South or Midwest. Asian America doesn’t exist only on the coasts, you know.

We are interested in issues that affect Asian Americans, but, please, no Asian American Studies 101. We are also interested in tangentially Asian American stories, in quirky stories, and in stories about emerging artists rather than established ones. We don’t have many rules, but here are a few. If you break these, your submission will be rejected:

1) Do not send ideas about people and events in Asia. We cover Asian America, not Asia.

2) Absolutely no reprints, though substantially revised or expanded stories will be considered. This means don’t send us something that has already been published elsewhere.

3) Do not pitch us a story about a conference. There is nothing more boring than a story about a conference.

4) Don’t send us anything that uses the phrase “East meets West.” Just don’t.

Grand

From the Web Site:

Read GRAND magazine, listen to the voices and the messages. Then, find a story or an idea that directly relates to the role of grandparenting and/or the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. (In other words, we are not a magazine about aging, or senior citizens; in the U.S., the average age of a first-time grandparent is 46. Our audience is overwhelmingly “baby boomers.”) When you have found a topic, ask yourself two questions: what is this about? And what is this about, really? Then…Answer those two questions to me, in an e-mail (grand@grandmagazine.com) and knock my socks off.

Often, I’m asked questions such as:

1. Preferred word length. Don’t worry about it. Tell the story. I’m the editor; I’ll worry about length.
2. Samples of past writing. Probably won’t be read. I’m busy, and anyway, who knows how much (and how well) the material was edited after it left your hands? I’m always willing to give a new writer a chance.
3. What issue will this appear in? Who knows? Our magazine content is chosen, by me, to meet an organic standard and each month has a very different personality. Your piece will appear when it is exactly right.
4. When will I be paid? Standard is within 45 days of acceptance of the article. Sometimes sooner if we’ve pressed you for a short deadline. Sometimes later if revisions have been required.
5. How much will I be paid? Not as much as you’re worth.
6. Will I receive hard copies of my work once it appears in the magazine? If you have trouble downloading them and printing them out yourself, we’ll provide them.
7. What about photographs? The more you send with a piece that needs photographs, the happier we are, even if we don’t use them. We like to have options. We rarely, once in a blue moon, when pigs fly, pay an author to take photographs.
8. Do I need to include websites and other resource information in the article, as applicable? Yes, yes, yes. The more links and video/podcast potential and purchasing information and research data, etc. that we make accessible to the reader, the more we’re doing our job.
9. How quickly will you reply to my query? If you don’t hear from me within 48 hours, something (like spam-control) has interfered. Try again.
10. Are you happy to hear from new writers? Immensely. It’s the most exciting part of the job…because there’s always the chance that there’s an idea coming that will make my day!