First, the manuscript should be written neatly, the handwriting should not be scribbled, and the manuscript paper should be square paper. Many authors don't pay much attention to this aspect, and they copy it at sixes and sevens. What's more, just copy a poem on the cigarette case or write it on the back of the used manuscript paper. Some authors use manuscript paper to copy, but don't use square manuscript paper and so on. For this kind of contributions, editors generally don't read them carefully. First of all, it's too difficult to read.
Second, the editor thinks that the author's creation is not rigorous, and the quality of submission is certainly not much better. Third, there is no need to copy the manuscript paper. If the manuscript is published, it is not convenient to modify it. It is not easy to calculate the line spacing and the number of words.
Second, the author should be modest in submitting. Many authors always like postscript when they contribute. The author's postscript can be said to be varied. Appropriate self-introduction is ok, but it should be concise, modest and polite. I remember when I first started working as an editor in a municipal literary journal, and I saw many similar postscript: I am a member of an association, a member of the China Literature Association ... I won many awards in literary competitions all over the country, and I can be said to be an influential writer and poet. I sent you some poems today, which should be enough to be published in your municipal journal. I wonder which editor is willing to send such an arrogant manuscript. Since your level is so high, since you don't have a municipal publication in your eyes, why do you contribute to the municipal publication? At that time, when I was young, I sat and finished reading my poem. In fact, the so-called poetry can't even reach the level of county-level publications. That's just the author's boast. Moreover, authors often don't know their own creative level, and always think that their manuscripts are of high level, which really answers the proverb that "children are their own good". When submitting a manuscript, I always overestimate my manuscript, and even say that it has been affirmed by an editor-in-chief or appreciated by a writer. In fact, the editor knows the quality of the manuscript after reading it. There is no need for the author to gild the lily, which is often counterproductive. Therefore, the author must be modest when submitting a manuscript, and don't over-promote himself.
Third, the submission should be targeted. At present, there are many newspapers and periodicals in China. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 1000 kinds of literary newspapers and periodicals in China, and there are countless literary supplements of various newspapers. Authors often complain that their manuscripts are not appreciated by editors. Apart from the quality, it is nothing more than that the author did not find a suitable newspaper to contribute. In fact, every newspaper has its own characteristics, and it has its own standard of manuscript use. If you don't make a choice, you can't write a manuscript, and it will definitely be difficult to become an instant hit. Generally speaking, the articles published by newspaper supplements are lower than pure literary publications, and the literary works published by newspaper supplements are generally consistent with the propaganda theme of newspapers in this period, which can also be said to be timely. If it is this kind of manuscript, it is generally not easy to be published in pure literary journals. Of course, there are also some major newspaper supplements whose literary works are not low, depending on the newspaper. Literary publications are generally divided into municipal, provincial and central levels. Generally speaking, the quality of manuscript selection at different levels is different. For example, Fiction Monthly and Fiction Selected Magazine can be said to contain the essence of novels, and the works of ordinary authors are not easy to be selected. How to improve the hit rate of your manuscript, first of all, you should know your creative level and contribute to the corresponding newspaper according to your creative level, so that it is easy to hit the target.
Fourth, it is best not to send the manuscript to the editor. I have been an editor for a long time, and I have made many literary friends. So there are many personal letters or manuscripts sent to the editor, and the desk is full of letters and manuscripts, which can't be handled. The editorial department has a special person to send and receive manuscripts and register and distribute them in time. There is generally no backlog. On the contrary, manuscripts sent to editors are often overstocked and cannot be processed in time.
Five, the manuscript should be kept, which is convenient for more than one manuscript. At present, all newspapers and periodicals do not reject manuscripts. First, the workload is large; Second, I can't afford a lot of postage. Generally speaking, if you haven't seen the adoption notice for two months (unless there is an agreement), you can submit it again. The manuscript still needs to be submitted to several newspapers (don't submit two manuscripts at the same time), and it may be selected by one newspaper. Unpublished is not necessarily a low level, but the key is to have a clear purpose in submitting.
6. Don't contribute long articles to newspaper supplements. As we all know, the capacity of newspaper supplements is extremely limited, and there are too many words in the manuscript to fit in the layout. Editing and modifying takes time and brain power. In this case, editors usually choose other manuscripts, and the fate of the manuscripts can be imagined.
Seven, when the manuscript, to write down the fixed address, zip code, name at the end of the manuscript, for editing. Don't think this is a trivial matter. Many authors often forget to write the address at the end of the manuscript, so that the editor can't get in touch with the author.
Email tips
First, use an extension. Txt for submission.
Second, the submission should be accompanied by pictures as much as possible. The pictures should be captured by professional software and saved in BMP or TIFF format.
Third, the article has no spaces, few low-level mistakes, clear thinking, compact structure, about 3000 words, and subtitles.
First, let's look at the work habits of editors. Many editors use Word, but this does not mean editing the most commonly used documents with extensions. Doc, but their most commonly used document is the extension. txt。 Why? Because many typesetting software such as Adobe PageMaker only supports placing text documents. Another reason is that MAC still dominates the printing industry. Many magazines use MAC for typesetting in order to make them more beautiful. However, the file compatibility of MAC is poor and it is difficult to communicate with the outside world. The most important thing is that they are expensive, so editors use PCs. Documents on PC are not completely compatible with those on Mac, and text files are better in file compatibility.
From this, we got the first secret: using the extension. Txt for submission.
For technical submission, it is best to attach pictures. Judging from the current sales situation of magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan, magazines with pictures or even more pictures and fewer words are becoming more and more popular, which is inseparable from the faster pace of life of modern people. No one wants to work and study all day and read magazines full of words.
Speaking of pictures, I need to remind you that in order to make it easier for editors to select your manuscript, please learn to use professional picture capture software, such as HyperSnap and SnagIt. There are three advantages of using these professional software to capture pictures: First, the resolution of capturing pictures is higher, generally reaching 96dpi, while the resolution of capturing pictures by directly pressing the print screen key on the keyboard is only 72dpi；; Second, the shot image area is finer and more accurate, which saves the trouble of editing with Photoshop; Third, all these softwares have the function of easily adding picture annotations. Annotated pictures are more convenient for readers to understand articles, and editors will certainly pay more attention to articles with such pictures.
In addition, in order to ensure the printing quality of pictures, when using the picture capture software, please directly save it as a file in BMP or TIFF format. The pictures saved in these two formats can retain the highest image quality, while the JPG format commonly used on the Internet will affect the quality of printed pictures when used for printing because of lossy compression (on the surface, there is little difference in image quality among BMP, TIFF and JPG, but when converted to the resolution of 300dpi required for typesetting, the difference in image quality will be clear at a glance). If the topics of the two submissions are close and the quality of the articles is similar, the editor will definitely give priority to the better printing quality. Because most writers contribute by email or QQ, MSN and other online forms, it will waste a lot of network expenses and time to send pictures in BMP or TIFF format directly, so it is necessary to compress the pictures. You might as well put the pictures and text files in a folder, which should be named as the title of the article instead of the default "new folder" (so that editors can pick out thousands of contributions for priority reading), and then compress them into ZIP or RAR format with compression software. After listening to my advice, many writers were surprised to find that the volume change of BMP or TIFF files during compression can be several hundred percent of the original file volume! It is much smaller than JPG format.
This leads to the second secret: submit as many pictures as possible, grab the pictures with professional drawing software and save them in BMP or TIFF format.
Because typesetting software will automatically indent the beginning of a paragraph, it is necessary to develop the habit of leaving no spaces at the beginning of a paragraph, which can save the editor the trouble of removing spaces when editing an article, and will also increase the editor's goodwill towards your article invisibly.
After the manuscript is written, it is best to proofread it carefully by yourself first, so as to eliminate the common mistakes of "change, change and change" and some clerical errors. Editors with strong writing ability will treat articles full of "right and wrong" and low-level clerical errors differently, while editors with poor writing ability will hate such manuscripts because they are not sure to find out all the "right and wrong" mistakes, and simply give priority to the manuscripts of authors with low scolding rate, and your manuscripts will be treated differently in the future. In addition, it is worth noting that the writing methods of "one" and "1" do not conform to the national punctuation standards, and the correct writing methods are "one" and "1". In fact, there are still many irregularities in our daily writing, but these two mistakes are the most troublesome to correct, which cannot be changed by Word's "find/replace", so reducing these two mistakes will also increase the editor's goodwill value for your article.
When the mistakes in the article are almost checked, don't rush to send the manuscript, read it through again and correct the bad sentences. Then try to delete paragraphs that are not closely related to the topic of the article (what? Delete a paragraph? Words are money! Isn't this cutting meat? ), a 3,000-word manuscript with clear thinking and compact structure is far easier to pass than a 5,000-word manuscript with scattered thinking and bloated volume (except for special topics, the version of each article is generally limited to the second edition, so it is useless to write too much. How much you write will be cut down to the number of words required for the second edition, that is, about 3,000 words, and large manuscripts that are not easy to cut down to about 3,000 words will often fail).
Finally, if the manuscript is not too urgent, you might as well add a subtitle to your article. This makes it easier for editors to understand your writing ideas when they first read it. If you don't add a subtitle, the editor doesn't fully understand your idea when he first reads it, and often adds a subtitle according to his understanding of the article, and then deletes it according to the subtitle. Also, most editors read through articles on the basis of subheadings, not only editors, but also readers who are short of time and short of temper. Articles with subheadings will be easier to pass the final review and win the favor of readers than articles without subheadings.