From the Web Site:
Thanks for your interest! GreenPrints lives because people like you care about gardening—and about sharing with other gardeners. Without your garden writing, the magazine simply would not exist. So, thank you!
Now, what do I want?
1) The best, personal (important word, that) garden writing I can get. Expressive, thoughtful, humorous, angry, contrite, flippant, searching, witty, observant, sad, inviting— whatever! We focus on the human, not how-to side of gardening. On the people as well as the plants. After all, gardening is a relationship, not a recipe. GreenPrints explores that relationship, not by instructing, preaching, or lecturing about it. Instead, we celebrate it . . . by sharing the stories and experiences we all have trying (and sometimes failing) to get along with plants.
Do you want to know a secret? The kind of garden writing Pat most wants? That will win him over every time?
A good STORY.
That’s it. A good, entertaining, clever, moving, funny story. One with, you know, a narrative. A plot. Where something happens—something remarkable, touching, unexpected, hilarious. Let me say it again: a good story. One you’d like to hear or read. Most especially, a true story. Something special that happened to you. That’s the garden writing I most want.
And, please, try to show us the story, not tell us about it. Remember the old high-school English-class dictum: Show, don’t tell. Take us through the experiences in your garden writing with trenchant details and tight descriptions. Don’t say it was profound or funny or beautiful: make us experience the feelings by taking us through them with you. (Hint: Dialogue is good!)
2) We’re not opposed to essays, but the good ones a) evolve directly from personal experience and b) offer new insights or at least new ways of expressing old insights. They’re not just the same garden writing we’ve all seen before. We’re not opposed to fiction, either, but don’t you agree that it should offer something special that the nonfiction stories we get don’t (i.e., don’t just imitate reality).
3) One thing for sure, we don’t want sappy, gooey writing. Tender, moving, poignant is wonderful. But syrupy garden writing is a big trap GreenPrints has to avoid. (Another is preachy. We can all read lectures and sermons other places, n’est-ce pas?)
4) Strong endings. Many, many, many times I send pieces back to say, “This peters out. The ending is weak, obvious, trite. Give me a creative, witty, forceful conclusion. Stop the piece with a wham, not a whimper.” A good ending (some of which make a clever reference back to the beginning) can lift a whole piece of garden writing a notch and make it end with an exclamation point of strength, instead of, well . . . just . . . fading . . . away . . .
5) Length? I don’t know. Since we’re digest-sized, most of our pieces are no more than 2,000 words. But write what you have to. If it’s good garden writing, we’ll work out length problems.
6) Payment? Did you have to ask? We pay miserably; top payment is $150 and we often pay less. I apologize. You deserve more. If GreenPrints ever starts paying me better than miserably, I will be only too glad to pay more. (Right now, I’m working for peanuts. small peanuts.) We pay on acceptance, buy First North American Serial Rights (unless you’ve already published it somewhere else first; we’re happy to reprint garden writing pieces—as long as they’re good!).
From the Web Site:
Owners Perspective Magazine is an independent consumer publication for the leisure property and luxury travel markets and is currently distributed via leading UK supermarkets, selected hotels and resorts, travel and property shows and by individual print and online subscriptions with a total readership of more than 42,000 consumers.
Quick Guidelines
Initially we will consider pre-written and pre-published articles so long as you own the rights for reproduction, once selected as a featured writer you can then suggest topics to us for consideration and be either paid on a per word or contract basis depending on what’s involved in creating the article.
We are particularly interested in any article that falls into any of the following categories:
Overseas Property, Fractional Ownership, Timeshare, Private Residence Clubs, Destination Guides, City Guides, Luxury Hotel Reviews, Hospitality Brand Resort Reviews, General Travel, Tourist Attractions, Spas, Spa Resorts, Golf Resorts, Golf Property, Golf Holidays, Skiing, Ski Resorts, Surfing, Yachting, Celebrity Interviews, Luxury Lifestyle Products.WORD COUNT:
Web Articles – 250-500 words average.
Print Articles – Minimum 800 words, Preferred 1200 – 1400 wordsPayment
In brief, here is what we offer freelance experienced journalists / travel writers:
- 1. Web Articles – £15 to £45 ($25 to $65) for short web only articles written to include useful keywords relating to the topics we cover. Typically these can be as short as 250-500 words and can be purchased in regular quantities for proven writers.
- 2. Pre-written articles – £45 to £100 ($65 to $145) for any standard travel related article you have written or are currently writing based on length, quality, accompanying images etc. These would be for print use as well as repeated online.
- 3. High end original content not yet published anywhere else, such as niche market articles, specific reviews or interviews (including celebrity) will be considered at a higher fee on a case by case basis.
- 4. If the quality of your work makes you a regular contributor you may then be asked to take on assignment work, such as interviews we set up, resort reviews, convention reviews etc. This can pay from £100 up to £1,000 ($145 up to $1,450) depending on location and requirements as well as all travel and accommodation expenses. The closest qualified writer to the location of the assignment will usually be asked first.
- 5. Reserved for selected regular freelance and full time journalists, there is also a 10% referral commission to be earned on new advertisers introduced to the publication(s). These would often be the resorts / products you plan to review etc. Ask for more details.
All fees cover use in one or more of our magazines and online and are paid upon publication.
From the Web Site:
High Country News is an award-winning nonprofit newsmagazine. Since 1970, we’ve covered environmental, cultural, and social issues in the Western United States. We publish 22 times a year, and are always looking for new voices for our pages and Web site. This page describes our guidelines for written, photographic, and multimedia submissions.
Writers’ Guidelines
HCN will consider well-researched stories on any natural resource or environmental topic, as long as it concerns the West. We define “resources” to include people, politics, culture and aesthetic values — not just coal, oil and timber. Keep in mind that we have an 11-state region (OR, WA, CA, MT, ID, NV, WY, CO, NM, AZ, UT) to cover in a small news space; we want local stories that have significance across the entire region and that can be told in ways that go beyond what the daily newspapers report.
Our ideal articles are magazine-style. They include strong storytelling, compelling characters, a clear, jargon-free style, and a dedication to intellectual honesty. We want writers who can view topics with a critical eye and dig deeply into issues. We also would like our writers to be as diverse as the region they cover, and encourage Native American, Hispanic, and other minority journalists to send us queries.
We divide submissions into departments (generally 800 to 1,600 words; specific departments are listed below), of which we print 3 to 6 per issue, and narrative feature stories, from 1,600 to 10,000 words (most commonly 4,000 words), of which we print one or two per issue.
Our pay rates are negotiable based on the writer’s experience and working relationship with us. We generally pay upon publication.
Leave a Reply