Article Marketing Resources

Where can I find the submission guidelines for popular magazines?

I've written an article-length true account of the emotionally turbulent (but in the end hopeful) events leading up to my brother's deployment to Iraq and am looking to submit it to a magazine. Where can I find popular mags' submission guidelines (I've looked, for instance, on Redbook's website and can't find any)? Also, what magazine do you think something like this would be good for? I am trying to go for a popular mag, not an obscure (but obviously appropriate) military one. I was thinking Playboy, GQ, Reader's Digest (alas they don't accept unsolicited article-length submissions), Redbook, Cosmo, etc.?

Public Comments

1. La la la - the submission guidelines will be somewhere in the magazine (usually in the first couple of pages with the editor, assistant editor info). Go to a bookstore and look at the magazine you are interested in.
2. "Writer's Market" available at your local library's Reference room: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/145079713?tab=details#tabs Or online at www.writersmarket.com This resource is updated annually and includes publication guidelines, contact information and the types of materials accepted by various publications, popular as well as obscure. Hope this helps!
3. Suggest first that you read up on how to do this in The Writer's Market, first section. You'll quickly see what applies to magazines, and can copy those pages if necessary at a library. Then, as every magazine editor begs writers to do, read many issues of target magazines so you know which is most suitable for your article. That is best done at a library. Then look the magazine up in The Writer's Market or Writer's Digest for the current name and address of the editor or the person you're to send submissions to (and what exactly they'd want first, usually the article with other bits of information, at least when I wrote for magazines). If there are guidelines and you need to follow them, write to the editor for them, IF your Writer's Market entry says that's what to do. It often is. If there are no guidelines expected, send it connected together but not stapled, using Word default margins, in Times New Roman font at size 12, include both the name and address you send it to, your name and address, and an SASE for possible/hmm return. Make sure all postage is sufficient. Some magazines do not return articles, so always, always keep copies of everything like this that you write at home. Be sure to have the title and just your name on each page (in the header) and have page numbers in the footer. (No copyright symbol... in fact, do NOT copyright this. Your copy at home is all you need regarding that.) Expect a few (maybe more) rejections; we all get them. Best of luck to you and your brother.