Publishing Syndicate is proud to announce a new anthology series. At this time, we are discussing this series with several publishers and for this reason cannot release the name of the project just yet. This book series is the brainchild of friend Kathleen Partak. Considering Publishing Syndicate’s new direction, Kathy’s idea for a book series is now becoming a reality. Of course, Kathy will have top billing, followed by the two of us, and Publishing Syndicate will act as the managing entity.

While we can't yet share the name of the series with you, we can give you a sneak peek at the structure: It will be an anthology series (with stories from you!) combined with interviews from experts, inspiration on par with that found in books such as The Secret, and how-to tips and advice, similar to the Dummies series. These books will allow our readers to "see, identify and do" and become an active participant in meeting their life goals. Once we have the publishing contract in place, we will release the title of our new series.

Stories for the series are not being accepted until August 1, 2008. Any stories sent prior to that date will be discarded. As the August date approaches, we will post specific guidelines for submitting your stories, so please check back. But even though we are not accepting stories right now, you can get started in the meantime! Following are some of the proposed subjects/titles:

Here are the Rules
Stories must be submitted to Publishing Syndicate as follows:

• Contributor must include all contact information, including name, address, phone number and e-mail address (if applicable). Stories missing this info will be discarded.

• You must identify the book title for which you are submitting your story (i.e., “Teens” or “Moms”). There is a drop-down list on the submission form that includes an "I don't know" category as your last choice. PLEASE DO NOT submit a single story several times for different book titles. We automatically consider every story for our other titles. If we find that someone is submitting the same story (even with a different title) numerous times, we will likely "blackball" that e-mail address and accept no further submissions from it.

• Non-fiction/true (see section below entitled “Legal Documentation” for more info)

• Written in first-person (i.e., in your voice, as it happened to you). At this time, we will not be accepting “as told to” stories.

• Written in past tense only, not present tense etc. (i.e., “I walked to the corner and waited for the bus” not “I will walk to the corner” or “I am walking to the corner to wait for the bus.”)

• Stories can be any length, but must not exceed 1,200 words. If a story exceeds 1,200 words, even by one word, then it will not be read. We are going to strictly enforce this guideline. Here’s a tip: acclaimed author Stephen King has a great formula he uses when creating his work, and we wrote about it in our October 2007 Wow Principles e-newsletter: when he finishes creating a story, he does a word count, then cuts exactly (or more than) 10 percent of the words. We have used his practice and it really tightens up a manuscript. To read more of King’s tips, you can access the October 2007 e-newsletter via Publishing Syndicate’s home page.

Submissions via US Mail•
You may submit your stories via US Mail if you do not wish to submit them via our e-mail form. Please, do not do both. And here are a few rules:

• Be sure to include all the information (name, contact info, etc.) asked for on the submissions form.

• Please do not submit anything but text. Stories that come with photos, clip art, or anything but text will not be read and such materials cannot be returned. You may indicate that you have photos, and if we decide to use them, we will contact you.

• Do not send anything that we are required to sign for at the Post Office. We really hate standing in long lines and our Post Office is almost always very busy. If you wish to ensure that we have received your mailed submission, please include a self-addressed stamped postcard that we can mail back to you.

• At this time, we are not accepting poetry. If we need poems, we’ll post this info on our website.

Cartoons
Publishing Syndicate has a resident cartoonist and is not currently soliciting or accepting cartoons.

Consideration (Payment)
As of this writing, we are still negotiating with publishers and thus haven't yet created our budget. But we can state that any stories published will receive consideration comparable to that of other popular anthologies.

Legal Documentation
Publishing Syndicate purchases non-exclusive rights, which includes the right to use the purchased material in other Publishing Syndicate books and advertising to promote our book series, for the lifetime of the book series. This means that you retain the copyright and may sell your material to other sources as many times and for as much as you like.

When your story nears a final selection process (which signals that it may be used, but is not a guarantee), you will be sent legal documents to complete. By executing these documents, you will be signing off on such facts including that your story is true (non-fiction), and that you are the intellectual property owner/creator of said story. Also, anyone mentioned in your story may have to complete legal paperwork allowing their “likeness” to be used and published. That means that even if you changed the names of the people in your story, they must still be reachable by you and it is your responsibility to obtain their permission via separate legal documents. If the person is deceased and you are the direct next-of-kin, then you may be able to complete the paperwork. When all documents are completed and returned to us, we can then consider your story for inclusion in a book.

We stress the information above because in the past, we have received wonderful stories that turned out to be fiction, or the contributor could not contact people in the story, and it had to be passed on at the last minute. Should you have questions regarding the legal aspects of submitting your story, we welcome you to contact us at rights@PublishingSyndicate.com. We’ll be creating an FAQ section on the website, so your questions may be posted on our site to help others.

Previously-Published Stories
If you have previously sold your story that we are considering for publication, we will need to know what rights you sold and what rights you retained. Publishing Syndicate cannot accept stories for which the contributor has signed away all rights.

Multiple Submissions
Publishing Syndicate strongly encourages you to “multiple submission” your work to other publishers. For those not familiar with publishing lingo, “multiple submission” means sending the same story to different publishers at the same time for consideration. Many publishers do not like this practice, but as freelancers ourselves for a combined 50-plus years, we absolutely understand and appreciate the need for writers to offer their work to many different entities.

Story Selection
We expect from 500 to more than 1,000 stories to be submitted for consideration for each and every title, with only about 10 percent (100) of the stories submitted for each title making it to the semi-final selection round. For this reason, patience is part of the publishing process. We must read and evaluate every story submitted and edit the better fitting stories as we work through the selection process to find the very best of the best.

When your story is ready, click HERE to submit.