SBS Magazine: Temporary Guidelines

[Shaun]

Note: Please read the other posts in this thread as there are additions to these guidelines there, namely ways to avoid requiring a parental signature and a quick guide to formatting.

These are the official guidelines. As of right now they are pretty solid, but they may change without notice if necessary.

Survival By Storytelling Magazine (or SBS Magazine) is small print and .pdf magazine published irregularly (meaning we don’t have a set publication schedule). We publish fiction of any genre and poetry of any form. Other prose forms (such as book reviews, and the like) may become an option in the future.
Publication is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once submissions are open for the first issue we will accept stories until we fill the issue and nothing more for the time being. The submission period will close once the issue is filled. We'll open submissions again depending on how the first issue goes. The intention is to print an issue once it is filled no more than once a month, based upon material submitted.

General Guidelines:
--Survival By Storytelling will accept poetry, short fiction, and short plays. Any genre is acceptable.
--All submissions must be sent as .doc or .rtf files to sbsmag@yahoo.com. Please pay attention to the guidelines specific to your type of submission for additional information on this. Do not send your submission in the body of your email.
-- You must be an active member of YWO to submit. Use your best judgment, since this is very subjective (assume if you rarely post here you're not eligible, but you don't have to be the top poster either).
--Please put your YWO username and whether you are a minor or not in your respective country (please note here that age groups are different in other countries and so what is considered a minor in the U.S. may not apply to you). We need this information so we know which contract to send to you.
-- All material submitted must not be online either on YWO or any other website, nor may it have been published in any other magazine, zine, etc. You are perfectly welcome to use YWO to edit your manuscript, but upon submission your work may not be online anymore. We recommend that any stories you are considering submitting should be put in the members only area (same for poetry). Before you submit, ask an Admin or Moderator to remove your work from the site.
-- You may use a pen name, but we still need your real name for our records. Please make sure that pen names are serious, not ridiculous.
-- You may submit up to two poems at a time or one story at a time (or one play). You may not submit a poem and a story. Give us time to read your submission and give you a response before submitting something else. If we accept one of your stories for an issue (or poem), please do not submit anything else for that issue. We recommend you wait a few weeks or feel free to submit if the next issue comes out while you're waiting.

Fiction Guidelines:
--Short stories should be under 10,000 words. We will consider longer lengths, but query first. The sweet spot is in that 3,000-6,000 range.
--All stories should be double-spaced, in Courier 12 point font, using standard manuscript format for short fiction. Look it up. SFWA has plenty of info on that. Please pay attention to SFWA standard manuscript format.
-- We want well written fiction in any genre. Excessive gore or violence will result in a rejection. We want tasteful gore and violence. Stories that make us think, scare us, intrigue and interest us, and otherwise entertain us are what we’re looking for.
--When submitting, make sure the subject line of your email says “Fiction Submission: Your story title”. It is imperative that you do this so it ends up in the right folder.

Play Guidelines:
--Plays should be no longer than 20 standard play format pages (which is different for the word count).
--Plays must be in Courier 12 point font.
--Look at the Fiction Guidelines for more specific wants as far as genre and content.
--When submitting, make sure the subject line of your email says “Play Submission: Your play title”. It is imperative that you do this so it ends up in the right folder.

Poetry Guidelines:
--Poetry should be no longer than 40 lines.
--Poetry must be in Courier 12 point font, but does not need to be double-spaced. Use standard manuscript format for every other aspect of your manuscript.
--If you submit something that doesn’t have a definitive form we appreciate it if you somehow mark your lines on every 10th line (this is mostly for 30-40 line poems). This isn’t a requirement, it’s just helpful.
-- For poetry we want thought provoking, powerful poems with good imagery. Abstract poetry is perfectly fine with us, provided it’s not too abstract. Rhyme or don’t rhyme, doesn’t matter. If the poem grips us, we’ll take it.
--When submitting, make sure the subject line of your email says “Poetry Submission: Your poetry title”. It is imperative that you do this so it ends up in the right folder.

Non-fiction Guidelines:
--We accept book reviews, articles, etc. Non-fiction must be of interest to the literature community, but don't necessarily have to be literary criticism. We like fun articles too, particularly if you've got something funny to talk about. The only thing we want is for your article to be related to literature somehow.
--We will also accept articles regarding interesting bits of history of current news, so long as they might be of interested to fellow writers or literature enthusiasts (meaning that they don't have to be about literature necessarily; and example would be articles about mythology). We don't want standard articles in this area, however. You should have a distinct voice, but not necessarily an academic voice. Basically, we want stuff that is fun rather than dull and "school" sounding.
--Articles should be no more than 3,000 words long and should conform to the same standard format as fiction.
--Payment is the same as for anything else and rules about violence are loosely applied. Language, however, should be kept PG. If you are opinionated, great, but please don't be opinionated and filfthy.

Payment:
We pay only in royalties. 2/3 of the cost of every issue goes to all the contributors for that issue, and the last 1/3 goes right back to YWO (to pay for printing costs for the magazine, hosting fees, contests, and whatever else). Payment will be made via Paypal. You may choose not to receive payment and can instead tell us what to do with your share of the royalties.

Legalities:
We are purchasing first North American serial rights and electronic rights. It may have other names, but to put it plainly by telling us we can publish your story or poem you are telling us that it is okay for us to put it in one issue of the magazine and only that issue (in print or in the pdf). We are only allowed to print it once. We cannot print it in any other magazine, anthology, or medium without your express permission and with a new contract.
All accepted authors must sign a contract. The contract will state basically what is written above: that you are telling us it is okay to print your story or poem in whichever issue is up next or in a future issue (if that is arranged) in print and .pdf, accessible world wide (meaning anyone can buy it around the world).
For minors there is a different process. Because YWO is primarily a site for young writers this is going to apply to the vast majority of you. If you are a minor and are accepted, your parents have to sign the contract as well. The reason for this is the same reason why your parents have to sign off for you to go on a field trip or to take Sex Ed. You are a minor, and therefore your parents have to sign that is okay that we are publishing your material. This is mostly to protect YWO in the event that someone decides to sue us. Parents are welcome to contact Andy or Shaun about anything relation to the magazine.
Contracts will be sent via email and can be sent back to us by email (print it, sign it, scan it, email it) or by post (address will be provided upon acceptance). We cannot publish your work until you have signed the contract and returned it to us. This is a legal thing that all magazines and publishers have to do.
By submitting you are agreeing to the following:
--You are the original creator of the material in question.
--You have not lied, to the best of your knowledge, about any of your information. Your name is your real name. Your email is your real email, you are the age you say you are, etc.
--You have not stolen material, even a small piece, from someone else without proper permission or properly citing (if you quote Aristotle, you have to say so).

What we are not looking for?
Spelling errors, grammar errors, poorly plotted stories, excessive gore and violence (as already stated), Deus ex machina, or stories that don’t go anywhere. We’re not that strict on stories, but we do want to make sure that they are entertaining in some way, or thought provoking.
We don’t want “Roses are red” poems, or stupid poems. Humorous poetry is great, as long as it’s done well and not childishly. No knock-knock jokes.
No reprints. We only want new material.
No simultaneous submissions (meaning you can’t submit to us and someone else at the same time). You MAY submit a story and a poem at the same time to us, but the same item can’t go to us and someone else. That’s what we mean by no simultaneous submissions.

If you have questions, just ask!

[jordanisonfire]

Heh, I won't be submitting, then. My parents would never allow me to have PayPal or sign anything.

[Shaun]

You don't have to have paypal. But unfortunately we can't publish anything LEGALLY without your parents signing. We can get in deep deep s**t with your parents because you're a minor. I know, it sucks, but I don't feel like being sued.

[Guessed]

That's a shame - are there any loopholes in sight? Anonymous contributions, for instance? My guess is no... ack, America is so full of sue-age.

But if I'm possessed to write an entire story for the mag, no doubt I'll be inspired to get a parent signature.

In other news, I seriously need to stop making puns - I think I've snapped.
Edit: Our avatars have the same expression. I like that. Too bad I'm changing mine soon...

[Shaun]

Haha. Yeah. I wish there was something else we could do, but unfortunately due to the legal conditions in the U.S. I have to protect my butt, and YWO's. I can't just take work and not get parental signatures for minors because the chance that we would get sued basically means YWO goes down forever. I don't have the resources or funds to fight off a law suit from a parent with a mission :P

[Shaun]

I updated the guidelines. It's at the bottom of the submission part about how to format your manuscript, etc. Take notice please. It's kind of important :P.

[Rafael Domination]

Can the story be a part of a series? :D

[Shaun]

Sure, just so long as the story itself can stand alone. We're not doing any serials right now, but if you have several stories that work by themselves, but do fit together, so bet it. It just has to be understandable by itself, if you get what I mean.

[GeorgeMichael]

I was thinking about fixing up (as motivation :)) and sending in a chapter at a time for each issue of the magazine of High School Weekend... it will give me a bigger push maybe, would that be acceptable, or would that not work?

[Shaun]

I don't think it would work right now. Possibly in the future we'll do serials, but right now the magazine is far too young for commitments like that. It's publishing on an irregular schedule, so unless we get a regular schedule I don't think it would work. In the future, sure.

[Shaun]

I found a loophole everyone. I realize it is a difficult thing for a lot of you to submit to the magazine due to that whole contract thing. So I did some research and figured out a way to do this that is as legal as we can get it without all of you being forced to ask your parents for signatures.

You may DONATE your work to the magazine. What this means is that you submit and tell us that you are giving us the piece if we want to publish it.
YWO makes this promise: We WILL NOT use your work for anything other than the magazine in its print and pdf forms. We will not steal it, use it for any other purpose, etc.
This means anyone can now submit to the magazine. ANYONE. Doesn't matter your age. All you have to do is put in your email that you are donating your work upon acceptance. Donating means you won't get payment unless you have a paypal account or we might consider using a postal money order, which requires your address at the very least. It's also possible we can opt for you to receive your funds via Amazon Gift Cards, although I think there is a $10 limit to that. Just ask us. We can figure that out.

So anyone wanting to submit, can. We would rather you opted for the contract option, but we understand your position.

Thanks all and submit!

(At some point I will rework this so it fits into the actual guidelines).

[Shaun]

It was just brought to my attention that maybe the guidelines are little unclear about manuscript format or that they're a little confusing. So here is a step by step of what you need to do to properly format your story:

On your first page you need in the top left corner the following:
Your name
Your YWO username (so we know which person you are around here)
Your email address
Your approximate word count (don't give us numbers like 1,513...just say 1,500...give us nice even numbers, like 1,550 or 2,100).

After this you need to skip down 5-8 lines. Center your text and put your title for the story. Make sure your manuscript is double-spaced at this point. In the next line (double-spaced line, so there should be a blank line between) put your byline (By Your Name). Then the next line, put your text (uncentered).

Then on your second page and all other pages you want to have a header. In the header, put it to the right side and have either "Your last name / page number" or "last name / story title / page number". Either works.

In the text itself, you want the obvious things. No errors (as best as you can at least), indents, typical punctuation, etc. The not so obvious things are basically to make reading easier for the editors (especially when we spend a whole day reading). You want all italicized text to be underlined instead. This is so we don't miss them (yes, if you're blurry eyed you do miss italics). Bold text should just be bold text.
If you need to separate sections (say you are starting a new scene and would use an extra empty space to signify that) use a single # centered in the line where you want that empty space. At the very end of your text you should use three #s, also centered to signal that your story is over.

That's all that we really want from the manuscript format.

Note on double-spacing: If you cannot double space in your program, please do not do it manually. Just leave it single-space and we'll deal with it later. If you can double-space do so. We know most of you have MS Word or some similar program and if you don't have those, try to get Open Office, which is free.

[Carraka]

Hang on ...

So even though we may now donate our story, and this circumvents the parent signature, you still need our real name for the records?

Because I was having delicious fun keeping it a secret. (It's Edscrumptious, by the way).

[Shaun]

Yup, still need your name. Otherwise it's not a legitimate publication of material.

[Nyx]

Typo in first post:


Poetry Guidelines:
--Poetry should be no longer than 40 lines.
--Poetry must be in Courier 12 point font, but does not need to be double-spaced. Use standard manuscript format for every other aspect of your manuscript.
--If you submit something that doesn’t have a definitive form we appreciate it if you somehow mark your lines on every 10th line (this is mostly for 30-40 line poems). This isn’t a requirement, it’s just helpful.
-- For poetry we want thought provoking, powerful poems with good imagery. Abstract poetry is perfectly fine with us, provided it’s not too abstract. Rhyme or don’t rhyme, doesn’t matter. If the poem grips us, we’ll take it.
--When submitting, make sure the subject line of your email says “Poetry Submission: Your play title”. It is imperative that you do this so it ends up in the right folder.


Yea, I know, pointing out admins' mistakes makes me feel superior:P

[Ace-Darkeyes]

I am new here, but I was wondering, when is the next SBS issue coming out? How often does it?

[Shaun]

Right now there is only one issue and we're not sure if we are going to have a second. It all depends on sales. If we don't meet our goal by February 1st there probably won't be a second issue. Get a copy :P.

[Ace-Darkeyes]

What is your goal for February 1st?

[Shaun]

100 copies sold. We're not there yet.

[Ace-Darkeyes]

May I ask how many you're at? :P

[Shaun]

Umm, I believe we're at 27 now.

[Ace-Darkeyes]

Hmmm, I'll try and tell a bunch of people who might like it, can't guarantee but it's worth a try :)
It's a pretty good price, if I can get a PayPal account I might order one myself.

[Shaun]

It's on Amazon too, just so you know.