Submission Guidelines
The first priority of Flak's editors is to treat you and your work with respect — and make sure the final draft is as clean and intelligent as it can possibly be.
Flak Magazine welcomes any and all proposals for editorial contributions, which, incidentally, are submitted on a volunteer basis. If it's any consolation, the editors aren't paid, either. Prospective writers may submit pitches for their articles without any prior contact with Flak's staff — but please, do pitch us beforehand. It just works better that way.
Flak retains the First North American Serial Rights of published articles. This means we print it once, and you retain all other rights. If you publish it elsewhere, a tagline of "This article originally appeared in Flak Magazine" should appear. A hyperlink back to Flak would be swell, too.
We encourage all prospective writers to read Flak's code of ethics.
Flak Magazine accepts contributions in the following areas:
Culture: Music, Film, Web, Photo, Opinion, TV, Misc., Books and Games.
Features: Feature stories should be pitched to the features editor prior to submission.
Audio: Audio stories should be pitched to the audio editor prior to submission.
Length, Style and Format RequirementsThe majority of Flak reviews are between 500 and 1000 words in length. Exceptions are rare, but possible.
Reviews should be written with wit, brevity, accuracy and originality in mind. Links to outside information are encouraged and appreciated.
Journalistically speaking, we are engaged in asymmetric warfare. Everyone else out there has more money than us, and is writing and editing during their working hours, in return for a paycheck. We are fighting Goliath without even a slingshot. We've got the journalistic equivalent of a soda straw with a wrapper that's been pre-perforated for safety.
This means we can't afford to do weak versions of big broad stories that major media outlets have already hit in a more comprehensive and timely manner. And why would we want to do that anyway?
One good approach: Orient your pitches to people, film, albums, traditions, events (etc.) that our readers have never heard of before — but connect to issues that matter and resonate with our relatively youthful, primarily US-based audience.
Another good approach: Tackle the big broad story that everyone's talking about it, but do it from a clever and/or fresh perspective that hasn't yet been nailed.
Whenever possible, avoid first-person references. Unless the piece is an account of a very special personal experience, it's always best to phrase things without referring to "I, in my opinion, I think, so to me this means," etc.
Submissions should be in plain text format, if possible. Microsoft Word is just a pain in our ass. We're eventually boiling stuff down to HTML, and we move content around in emails, so text is best. Please spellcheck your submission.
If you're down with HTML, feel free to add links — again, in a text file. Here how to do a <A HREF="http://www.flakmag.com" class="link" target="NEW">link</A>. If you send us a Microsoft Word document with links embedded in it, your soul will rot in hell for eternity.
Reviews should include the author's name, email address, and homepage address (if desired).
If you're concerned that your pitch has been forgotten by a section editor, please feel free to e-mail Eric about its whereabouts.
Meet the EditorsPlease feel free to contact any of the following editors about your submission or proposal:
Games: Sean Weitner
Thanks, and good luck.
