Writers Guidelines for The Aquarian (last revised: January, 2004) Who We Are and What We're Looking for The Aquarian is a tabloid-size newsprint publication, published quarterly on the first week of March, June, September, and December, and distributed free in Winnipeg and beyond. It currently runs 20 pages, with a circulation of about 14,000 copies and a roughly 50:50 editorial to advertising mix. The Aquarian is also a website that reaches around the world, reprinting a variety of articles from the print publication and linking to top-notch "Aquariana" elsewhere on the Web. Freelancers please note that our budget for purchasing, editing, and HTML-formatting articles doesn't permit us to purchase articles for the website alone. We only purchase content for our print publication. As The Aquarian's name and subtitle—A Journal for the New Millennium—suggest, we are, by genre, a "new age" publication and website. But we try and avoid the fuzzy thinking and credulity the genre is often associated with. Holistic health (natural, complementary, alternative) and progressive environmental, social, cultural, and spiritual issues are our major focus. However anything that freshly addresses or illuminates the path to greater meaning, value, purpose, and fulfillment in life is grist for our mill. All styles and slants—from serious to light, reverent to irreverent—are welcome. We aim to entertain and enlighten. We even publish the whimsical writings of Steve Bhaerman, aka Swami Beyondananda. Usually over 50 percent of the roughly 14,000 words of editorial content in each issue is written by freelancers. We are mostly looking for feature or department articles, high quality column/opinion pieces, intelligent interviews, reviews, and book excerpts. Our features and interviews usually run 2000-3000 words; columns and department contributions, 500-1500 words; and reviews, 100-750 words. Contributions by Winnipeg writers with a local slant are most in demand. We also can use short, newsy items (usually 150-600 words) for our Horizon department—again, local angle preferred. Our Millennium Medicine department usually features articles 750-2500 words in length. If you have something else that you think we might like—poetry, fiction, cartoons, humour, art. . .—don't hesitate to query us. How to Approach Us If you haven't read a recent issue of The Aquarian and live out of town, please send us 90 cents in Canadian postage or the equivalent in IRCs for a sample copy. Or visit our website at www.aquarianonline.com. If you have an article idea, please query first before attempting to write it for us. (If you already have a completed manuscript, just send us a copy.) If you're a professional writer, you'll know this is the usual submission procedure. If you're not, it's probably even more important that you query us first! Writing a publishable article is not as straightforward a process as inexperienced writers sometimes think. Even if your article idea sounds good to us, chances are we'll have some suggestions on how we'd like you to do it. If you're an inexperienced writer, we strongly urge you to crack open a book or two on journalistic writing before you query us. You should at least have a basic idea of how to write a query letter or an outline/proposal, what a lead is and why it's so important, and the need to present familiar subjects from a fresh "angle." We also would like to see at least one or two samples of your writing, published or not. If you have published samples, please include an example of your unpublished work too—perhaps a submitted manuscript along with the final published article. Pick any examples you may have that are as close as possible in style and subject matter to Aquarian material. The samples—and the writing ability you display in your query/proposal—will help us assess your ability to write for us. A little information about yourself—the kinds of Aquarian-related interests, skills, or experience you have—will help us decide if you'd be a good person to approach for a particular assignment. Please submit your queries to Syd Baumel, Editor, either by email to  editor@aquarianonline.com (strongly preferred), fax (204-255-5057), or mail (16 Victoria Row, Winnipeg, MB, R2M 1Y2). If you're reading these guidelines sometime in 2008, please check a recent issue of The Aquarian (or our website) to confirm that contact information. If you want us to return any of your submitted material, please include an SASE. If you already have a finished manuscript to submit, please submit it as a Word, .rtf, or text file, or if you only "do print," be sure it's double-spaced with ample margins and dark enough to scan well (for the same reason, if you must fax us a submission, medium- or hi-res is preferred). Don't forget to include your contact information! For electronic submissions, please use just one space between sentences. We regret that it can take us months to review your query and get back to you. If you feel the subject is time-sensitive, tell us and we'll try to respond ASAP or within your deadline for us. If we're dragging our feet, don't hesitate to remind us that your query still awaits a response. You're welcome to submit your idea simultaneously to other publications; but please tell us if you are. Payment and Terms We wish we could pay writers at least as much for their labours as most labourers earn. We wish we could pay ourselves those rates. But, like most small, unfunded specialty publications, we can't do that without sinking deep into the red. (Again, if you're reading these guidelines sometime in 2008, perhaps our fortunes will have changed.) For original articles, we usually pay between three and five cents a word (Canadian funds) for first serial rights to publish the article within our circulation area and on our website (with a link to your website and/or email address, if you have one). Generally, the more work, research, talent, and skill you invest in the article and the less we have to put into editing, rewriting, fact-checking, and so on, the more we pay. We also pay more to writers who are just writers, i.e., they're not also promoting a personal business or service through their article, as when a therapist writes an article on her specialty. We do this not to punish the second kind of writer, from whom we welcome submissions, but to try and equalise the net compensation that all our contributors receive. We pay about one-third to one-half our regular rates for reprints or simultaneous first rights (as with a syndicated column). If we accept your proposal but have little or no prior experience with your work, we'll have to ask you to write the article "on spec." What that means is that we can't promise to accept your manuscript unless it lives up to expectations. On the other hand, if you do have a track record that inspires our confidence, we'll assign the article to you and you'll be guaranteed a "kill fee" in the rare event that we decide not to publish it even if you have delivered the goods. The kill fee is 35 percent of what we would have paid for the article had we accepted it. We try to pay within a few weeks of acceptance of the final, edited manuscript. (For reprints, we pay on publication.) Again, send us an irate letter or email if we drag our lazy-heeled feet. Working with Us While we prefer experienced writers who turn in manuscripts that need little rewriting or editing, we commonly work with nonprofessionals whose manuscripts require major work before they meet our publication standards. Even the best writer's manuscript will usually generate multiple queries and suggestions to tweak it a few steps closer to perfection. Typically, Aquarian articles are more or less a collaboration—in some cases with very little input from us, in other cases a great deal. But we prefer to let you do as much of the work as possible. If there are problems, we'd rather just point them out, perhaps make a suggestion or two, and let you fix them yourself. That said, some contributors have the content, but not the writing ability or the desire to keep trying. In these cases, we're more than happy to take over the wheel and rewrite ourselves. We respect your right to see a published article of which you feel proud to be the bylined writer, so we make it a priority to achieve a meeting of minds before each article goes to print. The final edited version of the manuscript is always presented to you for review, correction and approval. After that, only minimal tweaking may occur as the approved manuscript is proofed and converted into the published article. We look forward to receiving your submissions.

What we like to know from your query/outline Feel free to approach us initially with a very brief query - as short as a few sentences. If we're interested, we'll ask for more details or a full outline, which should include the following elements: In a short paragraph or a sentence or two, give us a kind of mission statement for your proposed "story" (article, opinion piece or column, essay, etc.). What's your purpose in writing this particular article? E.g.:  In this article I want to cite widely accepted evidence to warn women of childbearing age to avoid tuna, swordfish, and other high-mercury foods that can damage the fetus. Many women are still unaware of this danger. This safe and simple measure could prevent very much unnecessary suffering. How does your story tell readers something they don’t already know, but probably should? What makes your story unique and valuable? Outline the content of your story as you currently envision it. Add detail where it would help us appreciate what you have to offer. How could your story be presented to make it attract and interest our readers? E.g.: Provide us with a possible headline and subhead (these should attract interest without misrepresenting or hyping the contents) Write a sample lead (the first paragraph or two implicitly communicates to readers why they should read on - or if this article is not for them). This should also show us the kind of style and tone you'll use to write the article. Do you have ideas for visuals that could help draw people into the story? What’s your relationship to the subject(s) of your story? Are you an: Independent writer?  Believer/advocate?  Practitioner/salesperson?  Protagonist/subject? Independent expert? Other? Where will your content come from? Specify your sources: Personal experience?  First- or second-hand info or anecdotes from other people?  Named sources you’ll be interviewing? Written sources? Roughly how many words do you think you'll need to concisely tell your story? Very briefly cite what, if any, background you have as a writer and/or in the subject area of your story.  Send published or unpublished samples of your writing, noting if a sample is edited or unedited and where and when it was published or written.

A Note on Plagiarism Surprisingly, some writers appear to be unacquainted with the concept of plagiarism, or to pretend they are. We have a zero tolerance policy for stealing or paraphrasing other writers' work without giving credit. So before you submit to us, bone up on this very naughty misdemeanour so you don't do it yourself. Just punch plagiarism into Google, and you're on your way.

All contents copyright © 2004 The Aquarian.
16 Victoria Row, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R2M 1Y2
ph: (204) 255-4884 | fax: (204) 255-5057
We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.
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