Used Ralan.com last night to look up some markets for stories. As a result I sent two off online, one a brand new unpublished story, the other one that was previously published. What struck me was how difficult some of these markets are to submit stories to, mainly as a result of cumbersome online forms and others, usually the lowest paying, for their pernickety formatting guidelines. Why do some have offbeat formatting requirements? Is it essential for their well being or some kind of ego trip? I really do wonder.
Regardless, Ralan.com is a brilliant source for uptodate information on the pro, semi-pro, paying markets.
The most annoying trait I've found in submission guidelines are several who demand that there be a single space between sentences, not two. Now, I learned to type at school in 1985 and I'm not going to change my ways for some pimply faced upstart with delusions of grandeur.
ReplyDeleteAhem...
It's taken me a while to get out of that habit too. When I need to I usually do a find and replace of two blank spaces for one.
ReplyDeleteNone of this should be necessary, of course, since any editor/publisher would have to go through whatever they're going to do to format everything to be inline with what's required from the finished product.