[Scpg] Call for Articles, Summer issue of Communities magazine

Fri Mar 3 06:22:52 PST 2006

Hello,.

   This is a Call for Articles for our Summer 2006 issue, “Good Works: 
Communities in Service to Others,” out in June.

             Has your community gone out of its way to be of service in 
some way; for example, benefiting the environment, or helping people in 
need? Or have members of your community individually supported a service 
effort or created their own service project? Some communities (or 
individual community members) have supported relief efforts for tsunami 
victims or Katrina victims, set up soup kitchens for the homeless, or offer 
help to Central American political refugees. If you or your community has a 
story like this to tell, we’d like to share it with our readers.
             .

The deadline for finished articles is March 27,  2006.

Please let me know your article idea soon, ideally by March 13.

(If you would like me to remove you from this 'Call for Articles' email 
list, please let me know.)

             Word length is from 900 to 2500 words.

             We’re seeking articles written in a reader-friendly 
popular-magazine style, rather than in academic style.

             If you'd like to write an article, let me know and I'll send 
you our Writers Guidelines. Email me at 
<mailto:communities at ic.org>communities at ic<mailto:communities at ic.org>.org or 
call 828-669-9702 with your article idea or question, ideally by March 13.

             I am sending this to you because you have either written for 
Communities magazine before, or inquired about writing for us, because I 
hope you might submit an article one day, or because you subscribe to 
Cohousing_L.

I. WHAT "SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE" MEANS. We will promise to read your 
article, but we may respectfully decline it and not publish it, or save it 
and publish it in a future issue. We also reserve the right to edit, 
shorten, or revise your article. Most of the time we contact authors about 
this ahead of time and get their comments, corrections, etc.

II. GETTING PERMISSION AHEAD OF TIME. Please send the article only when you 
have permission from anyone you need it from, such as fellow community 
members. It’s difficult for us to get all set to run an article only to 
find that the author’s fellow community members say No at the last minute.

III. PUBLICATION RIGHTS. Once your article appears in Communities magazine, 
we own first North American Publishing Rights. This means your article 
can’t be excerpted or reprinted in another publication in North America 
without our permission. (Which applies to you as author too.) We almost 
always give permission, and unlike commercial magazines, don’t charge for 
it—but we need you to ask us first, and we will give you the attribution 
line “Reprinted with permission from Communities magazine . 
. etc.)

IV. PHOTOS. We will also want hard-copy photos (including snapshots) or 
high-resolution digital photos of people and/or communities to illustrate 
your story.

             We will assume that any people in your photos have already 
given you permission to appear in Communities magazine—or you already know 
they will be fine with it.  If you think this will be a problem, please 
take care of it before sending us photos. Thanks very much.

Photos can be vertical or horizontal, black & white or color (we print in 
black & white inside the magazine). If you send hard copies, we return them 
after the issue is published. (Communities magazine, 1025 Camp Elliott Rd., 
Black Mtn., NC 28711.)

             If you use a digital camera, a 3 megapixel camera with the 
setting at the highest resolution is the  _ minimum _ needed. This will 
yield photos at 300 to 350 dpi (dots per inch) at 5" x 7" size.  This means 
the images will be high enough resolution for the printed page. Photos from 
a website do not work.
             (We can only use lower-resolution digital photos at a final 
printed size of about 2" x 2". These can sometimes be included as adjunct 
photos in an article, but we must have higher resolution photos as well.)
             If you send your photo as a jpeg image, please do not compress 
it first.

             PLEASE DO NOT SEND PHOTO IMAGES TO ME PERSONALLY UNLESS YOU 
SEND THEM AT  LOW-RESOLUTION, AND ONLY  ONE AT A TIME!   (We don’t have DSL 
yet here yet.)

             I'll let you know which photos we'll use, and you can send 
them, at HIGH resolution, to our layout manager, Amy Seiden.

             If you would like to submit an article but cannot supply 
photos, that's fine. Just let me know in advance!  Then if we use your 
article we'll get an illustrator, but we need plenty of notice ahead of 
time for this. Thank you.

V. COVER PHOTOS. We now have color covers and are also seeking vertically 
oriented, color photos  for our front cover. We pay $150 for a cover photo 
we publish.

             Are you interested?

             For a cover photo--which “sells” the magazine to newsstand 
browsers--we’re looking for five features:

              (1) A vertical photo of one or two people (or even three) in 
the foreground or mid-foreground, engaged in doing something, or looking at 
the camera.

             (2) They look right into the camera (so they can bridge to the 
newsstand browser), with expressions of happiness, contentment, 
thoughtfulness, or engagement, etc.

             (3) They’re wearing clothes in colors that look good together 
(ideally bright, clear colors), and which don’t clash. (i.e. one person 
isn’t wearing purple and the other orange.)

             (4) A community-type “scene” is visible behind them.

             (5) Something kind of blank, or relatively low contrast is in 
the upper right or upper left corner, where we can put the issue name and 
article titles..             A 3-megapixel to an 8-megapixel camera is 
ideal for shooting a cover photo. We are seeking from 166 dpi to 175,  182 
or much higher dpi (dots per inch) at an 8-1/2" x11" sized photo. If you 
send your photo as a jpeg image, please do not compress it first.  AND 
CHECK WITH ME FIRST FOR OUR LAYOUT MANAGER'S EMAIL ADDRESS; PLEASE DON'T 
SEND YOUR COVER PHOTO IMAGES TO ME DIRECTLY.

Thank you very much! I look forward to hearing from you if you are inspired 
by this topic.

We also publish articles on other subjects besides our issue theme, so if 
you have another article idea, please let me know!

             Diana Leafe Christian
             Editor, Communities Magazine
  Diana Christian <communities at ic.org>

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