Believer's Bay Submission Guidelines

May 1, 2009 - For current PDF version click here: http://www.believersbay.com/submission_guidelines.pdf 

Introduction

Believer's Bay is seeking freelance writers to meet its publication schedule. To this end we are advertising writing openings in multiple locations. The following information is being provided to all interested parties.

We are NOT hiring anyone. We are looking for freelance writers to submit articles. Writers who fail to familiarize themselves with the submission guidelines will find that their submissions will be rejected. Their submissions may not even be acknowledged!


Magazine Description

Believer's Bay is a Christian Oriented electronic magazine that seeks to share the love of God with common sense. This magazine is electronic only. It is published as a web site and can be found at http://www.believersbay.com. At some future point the magazine may also be produced and distributed in different media formats.


Position Descriptions

The positions that are being advertised are similar.

Volunteer Freelance Writer – an individual who has written something and wishes to DONATE it for publication to Believer's Bay. This individual will receive no payment for their work.

Columnist - a freelance writer who has been invited to join our staff and is asked to submit writing pieces on a regular basis. The columnist will be publicly listed as a member of the staff of Believer's Bay.


Mission Statement

We live in a time when the concept of love is actually under attack. The world’s view of love is attempting to overwhelm and modify God's love. God's love is balanced. It considers judgment and mercy and extends both to the individual within a Christian framework displaying true love.

The world's view offers complete tolerance of all positions while rejecting any viewpoint that will not comply with its view. The world's love is a false love. The world has a severe lack of knowledge of God's word.

God's word brings clarity when it is properly considered. It is our hope to deliver God's word through various types of writing. We hope to bring an understanding of God's word and the principles contained in his word to the world of the Internet. Because God is love, we cannot hope to share his word and the principles contained in his word without sharing the foundational concept of his love.


Statement of Faith

Our statement of faith is fairly detailed. It can be read at http://www.believersbay.com/statementoffaith.html. Please read it to gain a better understanding of what we believe. While we do not expect writers to adhere to our statement of faith in their personal relationship with Jesus Christ we do expect that the writing submitted will respect this publicly posted statement of faith.


Tips & Hints

One of the most frustrating things that we have encountered is receiving emails from people who don’t care enough to check out these guidelines. This is a common frustration among all publishers.

It is astounding that those writers who seem to have a great resume and a long work history in the industry are the least likely to do proper research. The quickest way to be rejected as a writer for Believer's Bay is to display your ignorance of the information presented in this document. If a writer can’t exercise this tiny bit of professionalism we recommend they submit their work elsewhere.

If you produce something that you feel Believer's Bay will find beneficial please feel free to contact us even if it is outside the realm of what you find in the guidelines. If it is outside what our guidelines ask for, make a note of that in your email or cover letter.

The Internet has tons of benefits and we haven’t incorporated them all in our website. New things are being invented for the Internet all the time. It would be ridiculous for us to restrict suggestions of new ideas from writers, artists, cartoonists, musicians, etc.
 

• Watch for duplicated phrases. Using a phrase too often causes the phrase (and the writing) to become trite.

• Use contractions. It makes you seem more real to readers. It's not a hard and fast rule that we always default to contractions but the lack of contractions is what science fiction writers use for robotic speech. They do that because that's how robots speak!!!

• Writing should be inspirational whenever possible.

• Suggested column length is 300-500 words.

• Suggested article length is 500-1000 words.

• Stay on topic. If you're not focused on one thing your writing won't be good.

• Conjunctions should not start a sentence unless used for effects.
 

Payment Schedule

We are currently accepting unpaid voluntary submissions.


Deadlines

All publications have deadlines and we're no different. It takes time to read, edit and correct pieces. Because of the extensive time constraints we require all pieces to be submitted a minimum of one month in advance of the publication date.


What We Accept

Believer's Bay accepts articles, poetry, fiction, press releases, news items, upcoming events, informational items, testimonies, bible studies, photographs, recipes, tips & hints for the kitchen and related material.

We are a general purpose wholesome magazine that will be read by Christian oriented people and those wishing to further examine a loving reasonable Christian faith. Any submission should fit within those guidelines.

We are not simply a Christian magazine. That means that if you want to write a poem about life that is depressing it is acceptable. However, a poem that glorifies suicide, which is depressing, would not be appropriate.

We realize that life has bad situations. You cannot have good without bad. No fictional story would be complete without a bad guy or a bad situation. Modern day controversial issues may be dealt with as long as they do not glorify values that are contrary to Christian values.

Stories about abortion, aids, homosexuality, politics, divorce, etc. may be written about and are encouraged to be written about. Each story will obviously have its own plot and perhaps a twist. The goal is to provide the readers of Believer's Bay with a contemporary magazine which supports and/or promotes traditional Christian values.

If you are uncertain as to whether the submission is appropriate you may contact us for editorial approval prior to writing.

Articles

Articles may be about anything. You may write a profile of someone. You may write about some topic of interest. You may share a testimony. Articles are factual. Just stay within the guidelines of our magazine. If you're writing about someone we will need written verification that you've cleared this with the individual unless they are a public figure. Without this written permission verification the submission will be automatically rejected!

Bible Study

We all have differing views of the bible. There are so many denominations that it's possible there may be one for every different idea that comes from the bible.

If you would like to share a particular bible study from your biblical perspective please send us a submission. These bible studies will obviously not agree. The goal here is to share what you believe the bible is teaching. Try to avoid preaching too much. Teaching is the preferred format for these submissions.

Believer's Bay has refrained from limiting our pieces to our published doctrinal statement because we believe the body of Christ has many differing viewpoints. We would like to be a place to share those differing viewpoints without too much aggressiveness.

Please help us to do this by stating things such as "in my opinion" or "this is what our church/denomination teaches". This will allow your reader to more readily accept what you are sharing. After all, your point is to get the reader to read what you are saying rather than ignoring what they perceive to be a know-it-all or someone that has a holier-than-thou attitude.

News

Press releases, upcoming events, news worthy stories, special information that will benefit the reader, political updates, and things of that nature. They are purely factual.

Find an interesting web site? Write a review! Need a place for a press release? We publish almost all press releases! Got some interesting piece of information? Send us the info! Have a picture we absolutely MUST see? Scan it and submit it.

Fiction

We want good fiction of all types. Science Fiction, Romance, Western, War, Political, Christian, etc. If you can write fiction jump right in and help us out.

Good fiction can be written without being dominated by swearing, sex, violence or the occult. Obviously there will be angry segments that require the illustration of that anger. If there is absolutely no way to avoid the swearing, consider rewriting that portion of your story or submitting another story.

Love can be illustrated without taking us into the bedroom or without giving us a ring side seat to a necking party. Violence exists in the world. It cannot be avoided completely. However, there is no need for gory descriptions of violence. The occult may be referred to in such a way as to avoid glorifying it or making it appear more powerful than God.

If you have a series in mind that would cover several issues the entire series must be submitted with the first submission or it cannot be considered.

I realize these guidelines are vague. If you have specific questions please direct them to the editor editor@believersbay.com. A well written story may have some elements that were 'rejected' in these guidelines but may still be acceptable. Each story will have to stand or fall on its own merits.

Poetry

Poetry is highly subjective. There are many forms and we are not here to determine correctness of form.

If the poem caused you to feel something and you feel it will cause someone else to experience feeling then submit it. Some poems rhyme, some do not. Some are traditional and some are experimental. We like all forms of poetry as long as they follow our guidelines.

Since poets tend to be prolific we recommend submitting 5 or 10 poems at a time.

Monthly Writing Themes 

Some writers have expressed a desire to write about a common theme each month.  The previous publisher had shared a monthly theme to create a cohesive approach to sharing.  At the request of multiple writers, the editor, and the previous publisher I've put together what I feel would be the best thematic format for the magazine. 

Manuscript Format

All email submissions must be file attachments. They must be in Microsoft Word format or RTF (rich text format).

The Microsoft Word style must be set to Normal.

RTF files can be created by using WordPad. WordPad is a program distributed with the Microsoft Operating System. If you're using Windows you've got WordPad on your computer.

If you're used to writing for print magazines you'll likely want to indent the first line of your paragraph. Remember this isn't a print magazine. You can't indent your paragraphs.

Leave a blank line in between paragraphs.

All scripture quotes must have a reference to the bible version you're quoting. The allowed scripture quotes must come from the KJV (King James Version) or any other public domain version of the scripture. This is due to the fact that modern versions set strict legal limits on their versions. The KJV is in the public domain and has no such restrictions.

Paragraphs should be no less than 3 lines and no more than 5 lines.

Failure to abide by this format will cause your article to be automatically rejected!

Submissions must be sent to submission@believersbay.com.

The following items MUST always be included at the top of EACH submission

Your real name
Your phone number
Your mailing address
Your e-mail address
The date of submission
Whether you are the copyright owner of the submission (you must be)
Where and when the piece was published prior to this submission
Word Count


Optional Biography

If this is your first submission we would like to know something about you. Please write a brief biography of yourself. If you'd like, send along a photograph in GIF or JPEG format. This will not be published with the article unless you ask that we do so.

Bio

If you would like a short biography posted at the bottom of your article please include that bio in each article. If you don't include a bio in your article submission no bio will be published. We will accept one web site link and one email link. Both links will be made active so readers can visit your site or email you easily.


Copyright

Believer's Bay is copyrighted. We use one-time electronic publication rights. ALL submissions are perpetually placed on the site. Don't submit an article unless you agree to allow perpetual archiving.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable to us but you should always be careful not to offend other editors. ALL other rights are retained by the author.

Believer's Bay maintains a copyright notice on each page of the website. However, if your work has not been registered with the Copyright Office and you want it to be, that will be up to you.


Follow Through

The staff is very small. There are many of you and few of us. If for any reason you feel that your article has been lost, overlooked, misplaced, forgotten or abducted by aliens…PLEASE let someone know. If we don’t have it we’ll probably ask you to resubmit the piece.

It is fairly safe to assume that if you haven’t heard from anyone for a week or two that somewhere the cyberspace monster has eaten and swallowed your submission. Don’t wait any longer, contact us immediately.