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Chick Flicks: filling a void in publishing.
Chick Flicks is a quarterly paying market seeking well-written fiction and nonfiction. You don't have to be a woman to submit to Chick Flicks; we're as interested in male perspectives as we are in female perspectives.
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Chick Flicks (c) 2004, 2005, 2006 is an O'Hare, Taylor Publication. All rights reserved
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Staff:
Stacy Taylor: Stacy developed and taught three successful writing courses in 2002 for Universal Class. She won two instructor awards for the duration of her position and was ranked number forty-six out of over 4000 instructors. An accomplished writer herself, she has been published extensively online and has won several writing contests. Today she writes when she has time and co-edits, co-publishes two online publications: Chick Flicks Ezine, and HeavyGlow: a journal of flash fiction. Stacy can frequently be found sipping mocha breves from the local espresso stand and fighting her craving for Thai food.
Laurie O'Hare: A slightly tarnished Southern Bell, Laurie was a Junior Editor for Abstracts magazine. When the publication folded, she took a position as an Assistant Editor for 3F Publications, where she assisted in selecting fiction for their signature anthology series. During her time with 3F, she edited Steven Weidel's novel, Shara, which is currently available for purchase at Scrybe Press. Laurie took second place in the 2003 24-hour short story contest at Writer's Weekly, and she won third place in the 2004 Southern Halloween Short Story Contest at Lost in the Dark. Currently, she continues to sharpen her writing and editing skills, and co-edits, co-publishes Chick Flicks Ezine, and HeavyGlow: a journal of flash fiction.
How to piss off an editor without even trying
Don’t format your piece per the instructions of each individual publication or anywhere close to the proper, official manuscript format. Go ahead and type your manuscript in purple “unicorn” font and forget the ___ and ---- in the appropriate places.
Don’t follow the word count suggestions. If the word count is 2000, send your 3000 word story anyway.
Simultaneously submit your piece to publications that don’t accept simultaneous submissions. If a publication will take simultaneous subs and asks only that you inform them that your submission is simultaneously subbed, then don’t tell them. And wait until a publication notifies you of acceptance before you tell them that it’s already been accepted somewhere else.
Send multiple submissions to publications that don’t accept multiple submissions.
Don’t read back issues or archives to get a feel for what a publication likes to publish, especially when they strongly suggest you do. After all, when something comes along that doesn’t fit their editorial content, they might just take it anyway.
If a publication says their response time is two months, then by all means start asking about your story’s status before the first month is out.
When a publication asks that you query first, don’t bother. Submit your piece anyway. If it says “won’t open attachments” then send it attached. If it wants it pasted into a form or email, then don’t save it as a text file before pasting and by all means, indent all your paragraphs, don’t single space between lines or double space between paragraphs.
If accepted, then bother the editor endlessly with your demands to rewrite. Be sure to change the same line five different times and continue to hassle them with ten different versions of your bio. And speaking of bios, send a 200 word bio when they ask for no more than 100 words.
If a publication rejects your piece, then immediately write them to let them know what fools they are for not taking your wonderful masterpiece or tell them why their editorial comments are hooey.
And…drum roll please…the easiest way piss off an editor and NOT get published is…yep, you guessed it…DON’T EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, READ THEIR GUIDELINES. We all know it’s just too much of a hassle to do so, and there’s nothing in there you need to know anyway.
When you don’t read (and follow) the guidelines, which always explains the first 9 points outlined above, then don’t be surprised if you NEVER hear back from that publication, because most, if not all, state that submissions not in keeping with their guidelines will be deleted (or thrown out), unread and without notice to the author.
We hate to sound like crabs about this, but we are stunned by how many people blatantly ignore our guidelines. They are there for a reason. We receive hundreds of submissions for each issue, and we don't have time to mess with those not in keeping with our guidelines. We're a small staff, and not following the guidelines adds unnecessary work for us. While we cut new writers some slack in this area, when a bio lists several publication credits, we know the author should know better.
More importantly, these points apply to other publications, not just ours. By ignoring guidelines, editors will see the writer as unprofessional.
As a final note, and I can't stress this enough, writing editors back after a rejection for the sole purpose of chewing them out, trying to prove them wrong, or telling them how sorry they'll be when you become a "big time author" is UNPROFESSIONAL. It may make you feel better to do so, but will only prove to editors, a. just how unprofessional and immature you are, b. illustrate what a thin skin you have and c. ensure that the publication will never publish anything by you.
For some reason, people seem to think that because we're a small publication, this type of behavior is all right and even acceptable. It's not. And you wouldn't do the same to Time or The New Yorker, so don't do it to us.
Many online editors know other online editors, and if you insist on this behavior, pretty soon you'll find that no one will accept your work.
Keep in mind that one, two, or even three rejections are not indictments that the author has no skills at all. It just means those pieces didn't work for the editors. Don't take it personally, and send something else. You never know until you try.
Chick Flicks Ezine
Don’t follow the word count suggestions. If the word count is 2000, send your 3000 word story anyway.
Simultaneously submit your piece to publications that don’t accept simultaneous submissions. If a publication will take simultaneous subs and asks only that you inform them that your submission is simultaneously subbed, then don’t tell them. And wait until a publication notifies you of acceptance before you tell them that it’s already been accepted somewhere else.
Send multiple submissions to publications that don’t accept multiple submissions.
Don’t read back issues or archives to get a feel for what a publication likes to publish, especially when they strongly suggest you do. After all, when something comes along that doesn’t fit their editorial content, they might just take it anyway.
If a publication says their response time is two months, then by all means start asking about your story’s status before the first month is out.
When a publication asks that you query first, don’t bother. Submit your piece anyway. If it says “won’t open attachments” then send it attached. If it wants it pasted into a form or email, then don’t save it as a text file before pasting and by all means, indent all your paragraphs, don’t single space between lines or double space between paragraphs.
If accepted, then bother the editor endlessly with your demands to rewrite. Be sure to change the same line five different times and continue to hassle them with ten different versions of your bio. And speaking of bios, send a 200 word bio when they ask for no more than 100 words.
If a publication rejects your piece, then immediately write them to let them know what fools they are for not taking your wonderful masterpiece or tell them why their editorial comments are hooey.
And…drum roll please…the easiest way piss off an editor and NOT get published is…yep, you guessed it…DON’T EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, READ THEIR GUIDELINES. We all know it’s just too much of a hassle to do so, and there’s nothing in there you need to know anyway.
When you don’t read (and follow) the guidelines, which always explains the first 9 points outlined above, then don’t be surprised if you NEVER hear back from that publication, because most, if not all, state that submissions not in keeping with their guidelines will be deleted (or thrown out), unread and without notice to the author.
We hate to sound like crabs about this, but we are stunned by how many people blatantly ignore our guidelines. They are there for a reason. We receive hundreds of submissions for each issue, and we don't have time to mess with those not in keeping with our guidelines. We're a small staff, and not following the guidelines adds unnecessary work for us. While we cut new writers some slack in this area, when a bio lists several publication credits, we know the author should know better.
More importantly, these points apply to other publications, not just ours. By ignoring guidelines, editors will see the writer as unprofessional.
As a final note, and I can't stress this enough, writing editors back after a rejection for the sole purpose of chewing them out, trying to prove them wrong, or telling them how sorry they'll be when you become a "big time author" is UNPROFESSIONAL. It may make you feel better to do so, but will only prove to editors, a. just how unprofessional and immature you are, b. illustrate what a thin skin you have and c. ensure that the publication will never publish anything by you.
For some reason, people seem to think that because we're a small publication, this type of behavior is all right and even acceptable. It's not. And you wouldn't do the same to Time or The New Yorker, so don't do it to us.
Many online editors know other online editors, and if you insist on this behavior, pretty soon you'll find that no one will accept your work.
Keep in mind that one, two, or even three rejections are not indictments that the author has no skills at all. It just means those pieces didn't work for the editors. Don't take it personally, and send something else. You never know until you try.
Chick Flicks Ezine
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