NHToDo Magazine

Thank you for your interest in freelance writing for NHToDo. We welcome experienced freelance writers and first-timers alike. The reigning criterion for NHToDo articles is enthusiasm. Content, style and accuracy become the vehicles for relating to others your exploration of New Hampshire’s hundreds of activities. Our job is to get your experience to the reader. We aspire to inspire adventurists and couch warriors to follow your discoveries and create quality of life enhancement for themselves.

Our tag is straightforward and indicative of what we would like from you. “Discover New Hampshire’s Excitement & Adventure.” This can be achieved from high atop windy and unpredictable Mount Washington or from the quiet salty seascapes of Odiorne Point. We are quick to point out that we are anything but an events-listing guide, and that we highlight indoor, artsy pursuits with as much commitment as we do the outdoors. If you have visited the Children’s Museum in Portsmouth, the Museum of New Hampshire History in Concord or the best diner that side of Mount Monadnock, tell us about it. We are the only magazine in the State that is dedicated entirely to publishing feature articles about New Hampshire activities.

So that we can help our readers discover the vast diversity of New Hampshire, our reach extends into the small, virtually unknown gems here in New Hampshire. We all know about the world-class skiing in the White Mountains, but when was the last time you took a tree- shrouded trip with the local cycling club in North Conway? Well then, tell us about your first time doing it! There is a yearly small engine fair in Peterborough, complete with antiques putting their stuff. Who knew? Your article can be about something as homegrown as a hobby gone professional or a yard-saling addiction that led you to finding a favorite childhood lunchbox. We receive submissions about interests of all kinds and from writers with varied experience.

As such, this guide encompasses details, addressing items with different experience levels in mind, and is broken down into various subject headers. We thank you for your interest in writing and photographing for NHToDo and look forward to working with you.

General Format

The most common voice of NHToDo is the first person. As many of the authors are relating their experiences to the readers, we like to hear it from their personal perspective. To all of you seasoned journalists who are commonly writing from the third person, break loose, have (more!) fun and put yourself in the mind’s eye of the reader, or more to the point, put the reader into your shoes!

While we prefer to write timely accounts in the first person, a story that is prefacing an event/seasonal date requires a bit of a different angle. You might contact the institution and/or vendors and speak with them and possibly contact their repeat customers about retro experiences for annual events. As much as possible, we try to recreate the experience for readers.

Payment

We do not send people out on assignment proper, hence do not pay “kill” fees for work not published. Feature articles are from 900-1,500 words and payout up to $100. Dining reviews are about 500 words and payout up to $50. The payout may fluctuate based on the number of segments placed in an issue. Due to the activity-based subject matter of our features, many authors are commonly photographing their adventures as they happen, which we prefer, though is not required with submissions. As you can imagine, having photos that capture your story as you tell it and have seen it makes for a better read. If you submit photos with your article, we do not pay more than the $100 or the $50. Depending on NHToDo’s efforts involved with matching pictures to an article that was submitted without photos, the payout may start at $85 and $35, respectively. Please understand that pictures submitted with articles may or may not be chosen to accompany the article, which may have bearing on the payout.

Multiple submissions

Our preference is to have original pieces, though we recognize the time/effort pragmatics involved for both the author and for us. Having submissions on file and ready to go certainly helps in timely "emergencies.” The onus for obtaining any reprint permissions (in part or whole) lies with the author. Presently we do not have a standard permission form and ask that you provide NHToDo with appropriate documentation that permission was granted. Freelance authors are responsible to pay any fees incurred for reprinting rights and must provide NHToDo with any credit line or subsequent requirements specified by the original publisher. If a publication requires direct communication with NHToDo for release permission, please contact our Editor Cam Mirisola at cmirisola@nhtodo.com.

The Submission Process

At present, NHToDo accepts email queries from writers and photographers. We do not require a formal query letter. We want to hear from you and about you, know your ideas and receive your unsolicited submissions if you wish to send them in. You are welcome to snail mail your submissions to NHToDo PO Box 586 Londonderry, NH 03053. With any editorial or photo submissions, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) if you would like the material to be sent back to you. NHToDo retains reprint rights for all submitted material. With hard copy photos, please put a mailing label on the back of your photo so we can clearly identify that it is yours. It is inadvisable to write on the back of the photo. All editing is done via Word Documents and email, so submitting it as a Word attachment via email from the beginning works best. If you cannot send it in that format, then pasting the text of your work in to the body of the email is acceptable…though not preferred. Email submissions, pitches and questions to cmirisola@nhtodo.com.

We work largely from an email database of freelance writers and photographers who are interested in working with us. If you would like to be on this distribution, please email us with your contact information, including phone number(s). At present, we send email distributions out to interested freelance writers and photographers with pre-profiles of upcoming issues. These profiles inform you of what we are planning for the upcoming issues.

Pre-Profile Document

The pre-profile document lists the article subject matter. We welcome all submissions and will place them on file. One of these months, you may find your article on one of these profiles, marked as “article in.” (You will be contacted in advance of the mailed profile.) We hope that this pre-profiling will give you more time to plan, play and write with a clear sense of what we are looking for and how you can contribute. The article ideas will have the following noted beside them:

1. article in: NHToDo already has the article to be published in and undergoing edits

2. tentative: initial contact made with author or author currently working on article, so if you have a similar storyline, you might prepare and submit it…just in case!

3. wide open!: still looking for the perfect author with the pertinent story

To clarify point two: Please know that as long as NHToDo has an author actively working on a piece, we are not going to arbitrarily drop the article just because someone submits something else. We are out here writing and editing these pieces also, so know all about the time and effort that is going into this work. And we get just as excited about an article as we hear and read about its progress while working on it with the author. We have as much a sense of ownership in nurturing it towards publication as if we wrote them all ourselves. As you are well aware, we are in an industry that is timeline driven. We reserve the right to run with other submissions

- if an author does not make doneline,

- if we don't see tangible progress from the author, or

- if for any reason we just can't bring the article around and it isn't up to snuff.

As it happens in this business, there may be the occasional hot and timely topic, or layout and space needs change that will force an article to be bumped. Such an article will be placed on file for a subsequent issue..

Text Specific Standards for Submissions

· Single-space paragraphs

· Use only one space after periods for anything that will be published copy for the Magazine. (Changing settings when doing these entries helps; spell check will catch two spaces after a period..)

· No Bold or Stylized (Italics) If there is something you absolutely want bolded or italicized, please submit it as such, though we use these styles sparingly in articles. Mention of other publications will be italicized and should be submitted as such.

· No tabs, no indents. Please left-justify all work. Our layout formatting takes care of any tabs.

· Please do not auto-paginate your pages. You do not have to number them “manually” either.

· Submit as a Word attachment via email (preferred) or pasted into the text of the email.

· Please pull all text out of graphic boxes.

· Use "and" and not "&."

For additional standards and for formatting sidebars and events, please see our website at nhtodo.com.

Photography

The tricky part of this is that some authors have pictures available and submit them with their article. Due to the activity-based subject matter of our features, many authors are commonly photographing their adventures as they happen, which we prefer, though is not required with submissions. (Weather/seasonal conditions and other variables can render some of them unpublishable.) Sometimes an author (preferred) or we contact the subject matter directly when applicable, and we get photos from there.

Photography submission is a difficult process to track on a profile sheet, as we often have the probable expectation of obtaining photos with an article submission. It is so dynamic and we are never really sure until we receive the photos that they will, indeed, work. If you have any stock photos that you think would work with any of our pieces, we welcome your submissions.

Submission Format for Photos

· Resolution must be at 300 dpi

· We prefer tif. format

· These create large files so they can be win zipped, and usually sent one at a time or they can be copied onto a CD formatted for a Mac, and snail mailed to NHToDo PO Box 586 Londonderry, NH 03053.

· With hard copy photo, slide or CD submissions, please send a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you would like the material to be sent back to you. Remember to identify your disc and slides and with hard copy photos, please put a mailing label on the back of your photo so we can clearly identify that it is yours. It is inadvisable to write on the back of the photo.

· Please note if photo is for one-time use only, otherwise NHToDo retains reprint rights.

· Please note credit line info if different from photographer’s name.

Photo Payout

In terms of going out on shoots, unless it is a subject matter you think would enhance your portfolio to have regardless, use your discretion as to whether you should put forth the effort. We have been receiving many photos with editorial, and as such we realize that our photo (alone) pay out scale is low. As we grow, we look forward to expanding our resource base on all levels. Again, photos submitted by authors with the editorial are not subject to these additional payouts. Our pricing for photos is as follows:

$15.00 small photo (different sizes, anything other than full page)

Note: We do have a “Snapshot of the Month” segment on the last page of each issue. This is a non-paying placement. You are welcome to submit photos for consideration there.