Complex Numbers

Newsletter Rant

Now that I'm doing two newsletters a month, it's becoming harder for me to find suitable material to feature. Usually I pick the genres I'm featuring, set the listing to random, and look for stories, poems or whatever that seem suitable for the newsletter's topic.

Folks, if you want to get featured in a newsletter - or, at least, in mine (Comedy and Fantasy) as I can't speak for the other editors:

DO NOT:
Leave the item unfinished - there's nothing I hate more than getting into a story only to find the author broke it off in mid-paragraph. In these situations, I appreciate a warning in the brief description such as "Unfinished."

Put your opinion of the piece in the description or, worse, the title. If you're going to title your work "Rising Suns," for example, give it a brief description like, "Two children evoke the wrath of the Sun God and change their society forever." DO NOT make your description say, "Comments needed," "Unedited," "Not my best work," or anything of that sort. I will not click on items with these comments. If people are going to comment, they will, and if not, they won't; if it needs edits, then pay attention to your comments; and if it's not your best work why in the HELL is it out in public?

Pick the wrong genres - if I find one more teen angst melodrama with a "Fantasy" label, I'm going to puke. Hint: Teen angst goes under "Teen" or "Melodrama" or sometimes "Satire." Fantasy is for magical realism, fairies, gods, magic, elves, and that sort of thing; not about how much your parents must hate you for making you do chores.

DO:
Check your spelling and grammar. Even if do a formal review of my Editor's Picks, you won't have time to fix typos before the issue comes out, and you'll get a lot of reviews after it publishes that tell you that "friend" is spelled with the i before the e and that sort of thing. Chances are, if there's a significant problem with spelling, grammar, punctuation or other technical issues, your item won't make it into my newsletter.

Take advantage of the "keyword" section when creating and/or editing an item. Put in relevant keywords, like if you're writing a novel about gay sex with aliens on Saturn's moons, make your keywords like, "homosexual, alien, Saturn, Titan, Rhea, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Mimas, Iapetus, sex, space" (The sad thing is I didn't have to look up the moons' names.)

Pick the right genres. I know I said the same thing under "do not" above, but it bears repeating.

And that's enough ranting for today. Where's the goddamn Advil?