How to Get your Article Accepted for Publication

Being a publisher exposes one to all kinds of writing. And while it's admirable for people to try to express themselves by writing their own articles, it is quite evident that many have neglected to learn the basic techniques to be effective.

Unfortunately, even if their writing skills are professional, many times their submission skills leave a lot to be desired.

As of this moment I have a several thousand articles, which have been submitted to me for consideration.

Time is precious to all of us, and publishers are very busy people. So your article submissions should make our jobs easier, if you want to up your chances for publication.

For those submissions that come in without a word count designated somewhere near the top, I toss them right out. For those that come in that are all solid text with no paragraph designations, they get the toss pronto.

If titles are too obscure, too sophisticated, oblique, or convoluted, out they go. Short, snappy titles are best.

If paragraphs are too long, the article is doomed to be trashed. Put yourself in the reader's place. Aren't you more apt to read short paragraphs than a solid mass of text? So is everyone else!

If mistakes are rampant—even if the article premise is super—out it goes. Publishers just don't have time to clean up submissions that don't even adhere to eighth grade grammar rules.

So catch a clue . . . clean 'em up . . . be considerate enough to include word counts above the article title . . . make that title short and snappy, clear and concise, and please, please go beyond the "spellcheck" function and manually proofread your copy. If it's not important enough to you to do that, why would anyone else bother?