We are currently (as of 7/1/2008) and actively seeking reprint articles from freelance writers as well as local freelance writers who have had professional experience and may be interested in writing for our publication in the future.

To keep everyone abreast of our guidelines we ask that you read this entire page then complete the writer’s agreement by clicking on the link at the bottom (or top) of this page. Please note that you must follow these guidelines for every piece of editorial that is submitted to our office. Failure to do so may prevent us from using your editorial.

MIDWEST PARENTING PUBLICATIONS EDITORIAL PROCESS
Because we want you, the writer, to understand the process of our editorial structure we would like to give you some insight on how our process works. First, your article is sent to our general editorial e-mail. Your article is then organized by article type and for the specific month it will be considered for. Next, our Executive Editor will sit down with staff along with the list of editorial that have come in for a particular month and determine what articles are to run and what will be assigned. Once these decisions have been made you will be notified and we will then obtain your information for payment purposes. The final process is that the article will be edited by our copy-editor and then placed on our Web sites (Indyschild.com and CincinnatiParent.com) and in both publications, if applicable. Finally, you will be mailed payment for your article.

EDITORIAL FOCUS
Articles submitted should address current parenting issues with an Indianapolis and/or Cincinnati tie-in whenever possible. Strong emphasis is placed on how and where to find family-oriented events, as well as goods and services for children, in Central Indiana and the Cincinnati area.

We are interested in well-researched, non-fiction articles on surviving the newborn, preschool, school age and adolescent years. Our readers want practical information on places to go and things to do in the Central Indiana and Cincinnati areas. They enjoy humorous articles about the trials and tribulations of parenthood as well as "how-to" articles (i.e., organizing a child's room, keeping your sanity while shopping with preschoolers, ideas for holidays and birthdays, etc.) Articles on making a working parent's life easier are of great interest as are articles written by fathers. We prefer a warm, conversational style of writing, however, we also prefer a well-balanced range of in-depth articles on challenging and hot topics.

CONTENT REQUIREMENTS
Most Indy's Child Parenting Magazine articles are purchased from freelance writers. In a typical issue, readers will find a variety of regular columns: Rave Reviews, Publisher's Note, Women's Health, Museum Note, Local Profiles, News You Can Use, Mayor’s column and more. We also run two to three feature articles at 1500 words per article and six - 10 shorter articles at about 500-800 words per article which are reprints only. The topics must pertain to Indiana parents and families in general. Features consistently require in-depth research and interviews with sources in Indiana (or Cincinnati, Ohio for our sister publication).

GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SOURCES AND INTERVIEWS
Because we take pride in the editorial that we publish for our readers, we will only continue using articles from writers who follow rules of grammar and publishing. Excessive grammar and punctuation errors will result in a disqualification from future publishing of articles as this is incredibly time consuming on our copy editor.

Please note that if you send your article via e-mail that simple formatting is best. Fancy word-processing layouts only bog down our layout department, as your formatting has to be removed before we can place your work into our page formats. Also, when you type for publication, there should only be ONE SPACE after the period at the end of a sentence. Although that violates the rule you learned in typing class, when doing page layouts via computer, that extra space causes problems and each one has to be removed. Also, you should understand the differences between dashes, en dashes and em dashes as well as to put all quotation marks on the OUTSIDE of periods and commas. Also, we omit the last comma in a string of characters. (EG: Shoes, socks, shirt and shorts rather than a comma before the and). We know this seems trivial but this saves us a great deal of time. If we get articles with these errors, our copy editor will notify you of your errors for correction in future issues.

We reserve the right to edit your work if it does not comply with company policies or in the event of grammatical errors and if excessive changes need to be made we may refrain from using the article or your work at a future date.

Your article will be scrupulously fact-checked before being published in our publications. Therefore, we require that your research be as current as possible. You should source actual published studies, not books in which the studies are quoted. The latter is called a secondary reference, and is not reliable. Your research should also be organized and readily available, so you will be able to respond to fact-checkers questions quickly and accurately. You will also be responsible for answering questions readers might have about your work so accuracy is imperative.

When contacting sources, you may state that "I'm writing an article for Midwest Parenting Publications” if the article has been specifically assigned, in writing, by a managing editor of Midwest Parenting Publications. You may not represent yourself as anything other than an independent contractor on assignment for Midwest Parenting Publications.

If you or a close relative or friend are related in any way (e.g., board memberships, employment, volunteer work) to a story you wish to work on, this relationship must be disclosed to the editor prior to accepting the assignment.

Under no circumstances are writers allowed to accept gifts, gratuities, free tickets or other special privileges in connection with an assignment for Indy’s Child Parenting Magazine without permission first.

AUDIENCE APPEAL
Your subject must have local scope or implications. For example, a story about how you handled a sibling rivalry in your family (aside from being first-person) might not be as appealing as a story with interviews of local therapists and parenting techniques to give readers a more in-depth answer to this issue. Reporting must be authoritative and original, based on interviews that you conduct yourself. Health articles, for example, should quote medical experts rather than simply relating a personal tale. Choose a topic that you care about deeply. If your story does not make you happy or sad, angry or elated, excited or curious, chances are that our readers won’t care that much either.

Because we must retain a high level of editorial professionalism we do not accept first person articles. We also do not accept fiction, nostalgia, poetry, cartoons, history, quizzes, puzzles, quotes, trivia, etc. We prefer that articles and stories are in-depth and specific to a particular topic and must be very thorough and use local subjects when at all possible.

EXCLUSIVITY
We will not run articles that have run in other local competing publications and for feature articles that we are purchasing first time rights for these articles may not be submitted to other local competitors.

DEADLINES
Articles must be submitted by the first of the month TWO MONTHS prior to the publication month. For example, because we begin publishing our May issue at the beginning of April we need your editorial by the first of March to begin the editorial process. If you are assigned an article as a feature (first-rights piece) and we do not receive your article by this deadline your article will not be considered. This same deadline applies for reprints. Writers MUST adhere to our guidelines in order to participate in order to keep our process as structured as possible.

We welcome your queries but only full manuscripts will be considered. See query guidelines below.

You will not receive a reply once you submit your editorial. We receive over 300 requests per day and it is absolutely impossible to reply to all individuals. If your editorial will be used, our accountant or editor will contact you. Please do not follow up on editorial pieces sent. Because of the sheer volume, we cannot address every submission. You are contacted only when your piece is considered or assigned.

FEES & PAYMENT
Midwest Parenting Publications pays .10 cents per word for first publication rights to an article and no more. Feature articles must be no less than 1500-2000 words. Reprint articles are paid $35 for articles under 500 words and $50 for articles up to 1000 words. These fees include the rights to use your article for both Indy's Child Parenting Magazine and All About Kids Parenting Magazine in Cincinnati, OH, as well as for use on both IndysChild.com and AAKMagazine.com once published.

Payment will be made within 90 days of publication.

SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS
All articles must be sent via E-mail to editor@indyschild.com. Do not send your editorial piece to multiple individuals within our publication. Doing so will not increase your odds of having your article published and may diminish your chances of getting published.

You must submit your manuscripts in the following format. If these are not included this may cause delays in payment and usage.

1. Author byline for the end of the editorial piece. Who are you? What do you do for a living? Children, spouse, pets, hobbies, etc.?
2. Photos for the article if they apply. While most publications require photos to be submitted with the article we do not require them but do encourage them. Photos should be attached to the e-mail when the article is sent and must be 200 dpi in CMYK format as a .jpg, .tiff, .eps or .pdf
3. Photo of the author for use on our Web site. This is a must-have.
4. Author’s complete name, phone number, email address and mailing address.

Please note that we will not return any work or photos submitted. We are not responsible for unsolicited materials. Do not send any valuable or irreplaceable items.

When submitting your editorial via email, your SUBJECT LINE must include the following information. If you fail to follow these instructions this may result in loss of your submission. MANUSCRIPT: "TOPIC OF YOUR ARTICLE"

SUBMITTING QUERIES
Query letters should be one page and three or four paragraphs should be sufficient. IMPORTANT: Propose only ONE topic per query. If more than ONE query is sent per e-mail your e-mail cannot be sorted properly and poses a problem for our organizational methods. The query should be sent to editor@indyschild.com and include:

1. Your central theme or point in no more than a few sentences. If you cannot state the theme in this way, the article surely lacks focus.
2. Your sources on all sides of the issue. Whom will you interview?
3. The story’s general trajectory. Briefly, how will you organize it?
4. A summary of your most important writing credits.
5. Attach one or two writing samples.

If your query is selected your article must be original and done on a first-time rights basis only, at which point we will contact you to begin the process. Do not send queries for articles that are already completed as these articles will need to be done using local references.

COPY REQUEST
If you wish to be sent a copy of your work, you must send a 10x12 manila envelope with $2.00 in postage to: Indy's Child Parenting Magazine, C/O COPY REQUEST, 1901 Broad Ripple Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46220.

CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE WRITER'S AGREEMENT