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 Notes & Grace Notes User Guidelines

PLEASE NOTE: Notes & Grace Notes has changed its purpose and policies. In the past, this site served as a platform for bi-monthly competitions as well as a networking site. Since we have expanded into publishing, fundraising, and other writing related activities (under the umbrella of The Grace Notes Foundation) we find that Notes & Grace Notes serves our purposes (and hopefully yours) better as an online workshop and social community.

Please refer to the guidelines below for changes in posting, feedback, and prize changes.

General Purpose: Notes & Grace Notes is an online community for creative writers to post their work, receive feedback, read the works of others and to help them improve their craft with constructive feedback, and to make some friends! Postings here at N&GN are automatically considered for publication in Notes Magazine and are eligible for special offers from The Grace Notes Foundation. Discount offers, free products, special subscriptions, and other perks unavailable to the general public are often offered to registered users of this site. 

Community Awards: Our editors will, periodically, list certain posts under "editors recommendations". These would have previously been listed as finalists in our competition. We will also occasionally award an "Editors Spotlight" prize but this will be informal. The prize will not be given on a set timeline. Those selected for the Spotlight, however, will be given acash honorarium (amount dependent on available funding) and will be showcased on our homepage until a new Favorite is chosen. Notes Magazine will make publishing offers to many who post here and one need not be chosen as either a Spotlighted author or an editors recommendation in order to have this opportunity. 

Feedback Policies:

Users are required to leave feedback on at least one recent posts (in any category) for every post made.

We have created this standard in hopes of creating a stronger community and an open exchange of thoughts and knowledge between authors. We here at N&GN passionately believe that authors blossom in environments where they can share their own ideas, methods, opinions as well as benefiting from those of others. Feedback is a cornerstone of our foundation.

Our Editors and Administrators will leave feedback, as well, on many pieces posted here. We cannot guarantee editorial feedback on every post though we do read all posts in consideration for publication. When time allows, we will also comment on posts.

General Rules:

• 1.     
• Co-Community posts and submissions for NOTES must be posted in the proper category. Miscategorized entries or entries that aren’tcategorized may be disqualified and will not be considered for publication. Wecannot judge a piece if we don’t know what it is. Please see the guidelines forNOTES Magazine (below) for categorization instructions for submissions.

The instructions for categorizing posts can be found on the right side of the submission form.

2.   -You may revise a post/submission after posting by going to the POST tab at the top of the home page. This will bring up a list of your posts and each has an 'edit' button for revisions. Please note that the date can be changed on the submission form so that your revisions will come up on the top of the posts list. We also strongly recommend adding "Revised" to the title of your post so our editors have the chance to review the changes. 

3.    -Writers must be ages 16 years and older and must own the sole rights to their posts.  Posts that are found to be the intellectual property of someone other than the user will be removed from the site, the account will be suspended, and they will be reported to the properauthorities. Plagiarism is a crime and will not be tolerated at Grace Notes.

4.    -In submitting to NOTES, you are acknowledging these rules and understand that Grace Notes cannot be held responsible for any intellectual theft of posted works. As with any Internet writing site, there is always a risk of theft. To protect yourself, Grace Notes advises copyrighting or registering your work with the WGA.

5.    -The writer gives Grace Notes permission to forward these works to our affiliates and to consider their work for NOTES Magazine or any upcoming anthologies. Authors retain the right to reject such an offer, of course, and are not obligated in any way.

     -Adult content is acceptable, to a degree, but MUST include a parenthetical warning for readers- (ADULT MATERIAL)- in the title. We do not encourage the posting of literary pornography but we do not have an issue with stories that have erotic qualities, violence, or adult language so long as they are a needed part of the story and not the sole purpose of it.

-      Hits& Traffic: Traffic to a particular piece is not considered when our readers determine candidates for our editorial commendations or for publication offers. While we appreciate it greatly if authors invite friends and family to visit the site and read their submission, we are also highly aware that many people have a vast social network online and could easily use that to pump up the hit count on their submissions. While every post does have a hit counter, this is for the author’s benefit and never considered by our readers. This is not a popularity contest.

4.  

Awards, Gifts, Perks, & Prizes

·       Editors Recommendation: A select number of posts that caught our editor's eyes will be listed under the "Editors Recommendations" tab on the Notes & Grace Notes home page. This is an informal version of an "honorable mention" and this section is often surfed by editors of other publications whom we have made alliances with. Many N&GN writers have received publishing offers this way. Authors of recommended posts receive special consideration/products/services through The Grace Notes Foundation and our affiliates.

     Editors Spotlight: Grace Notes Editors will occasionally choose posts that particularly impressed them for this spotlight honor. In addition to having the same benefits as an Editors Recommendation, the author of a Spotlight post will also receive a cash honorarium (the amount is dependent on our funding), a mention on our homepage, and an automatic offer for publication in Notes Magazine.

·       

We MISC:

askWe ask users to include a mailing address in their profile (this information is not shown publicly and never sold or shared with anyone for any reason). We often send free products (books, art, greeting cards and other merchandise, as well as free copies of NOTES Magazine) to authors receiving an Editors Recommendation or Spotlight.

·      Honorariums will be paid via PayPal no less than 12 weeks after awards are announced. We are a nonprofit organzation and payouts are dependent on accrued revenue which means payments are based on available funding.     

NOTES Magazine

Guidelinesfor Submissions

NOTES Magazine is interested in short fiction, personal essays (CNF), and poetry as well as submissions for our public column The Accidental Anthropologist. Authors may submit by posting work here or privately by visiting www.GraceNotesBooks.com and checking our submissions pages there.

ALL WORK POSTED AT NOTES &GRACE NOTES WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR PUBLICATION IN NOTES MAGAZINE. AUTHORS ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO ACCEPT ANY PUBLISHING OFFER MADE AND RETAIN ALL RIGHTS TO THEIR WORK. 

Fiction & Creative Essays:
NOTES does not have genre restrictions but we do have very specific desires interms of style.
We publish stories that celebrate a blending of the best qualities from both‘literary' and 'mainstream' stylings. Work submitted to us should have the engaging and realistic characters, vivid settings, and fast-paced storylines found in mainstream writing. We are not hung up on "plot" in the sense that we look specifically for "thriller" or "horror” or"coming of age" but we do seek stories that have a strong sense of being "About Something"-- even if that something is simply life or love or friendship. We don't want to read a story that leaves us thinking,“That was beautifully written... but what was the point?" BUT these qualities should be combined with the thoughtful prose and unique language often found in the "literary" genre.
NOTES celebrates balance in the works we publish. Finding mainstream stories to often be engaging but empty and the literary genre to be beautiful but often slow and dull-- we seek the slipstream, the best of both worlds.This is our only true criteria aside from asking that your submission be in professional condition, free of typos and grammatical errors (for the most part at least) and in a legible 12 pt. font.
Makes life easier on our editors!
We do prefer pieces under 3000 words for layout purposes but will work withlonger stories of exceptional quality. Response could take from 1 month to2months depending on the number of submissions we are currently considering.However, we have no issue with simultaneous submissions and ask only thatauthors notify us if another publisher picks up the story.

Poetry:
If you submit your poetry directly through Grace Notes Books, please send nomore than three poems at a time and do not submit again until you have heardback from us on your initial submission. If you submit through Notes &GraceNotes.Com, please follow N&GN’s entry rules. We would love to see yourpoetry if-- and ONLY if-- your work does NOT:
1. Contain the phrase "My Soul" or "Your Soul" or the word“soul" in any way, shape, or form-- especially in the title. We’re alsonot real big on the words (or words in the realm of) enlightenment, spirit, orspirituality. It's not that we have an issue with spiritual poetry inparticular but we find these words are often the product of passionate poetswho might not have learned to mine their minds for unique perspectives and subtlethemes. Also, "heart" or "my heart" might not earn you anypoints here unless you've managed a minor miracle with them. We find that poemsthat contain these words/phrases tend to me more exclusively introspective thanthe type of poetry we're interested in and are usually (although not always) animmediate indicator of poor expression.
2. Does not contain centered poems, bolds, underlines, a varietyof fonts, or an unusual amount of italics.
3. Does not use a single word, phrase, or sentence repeated over and over. Forinstance: IamGodandGodisme. I am God and God is me. I. Am. God. And. God.Is.Me...(repeat, rinse, repeat to amount to 500 words.)
Yes, we've seen this as an actual example-- and, no, we don't think it's amazinglycreative. Sorry.

Public Columns:
To submit to our public columns, see samples of The Accidental Anthropologist listed under Entries àMagazine Submissions. To submit for the column, the author must mimic to tone of the fictitious author (Claire or Irving, our cartoon mascots). To get a feel for their unique voices, read these posts and visit the character profiles. If you have done so and feel your piece fits the bill, post it under the proper category. Submissions should always be titled with the name of the column itself and include a subtitle relevant to your article.

Length guidelines for public columns are as flexible as those for fiction/creative nonfiction but we do prefer pieces less than 2500 words—for layout purposes. But we’ve never turned away a brilliant piece of writing because it was too long and we’re not going to start now. We also prefer pieces that are no less than 700 words—but if you’ve accomplished something awesome in less? We want to see it.

Payment:

Yes, we pay authors! We are authors too, and we know how nice it is to be paid for your work. Payments for future issues will be an honorarium based on available funds until we are more established and can pay upon first acceptance. All contributors will always receive a free contributor copy, as well.

Editorial Procedures:

NOTES Magazine and the Grace Notes Foundation prides itself on helping promising authors reach their greatest heights. With that mission in mind, we do not offer publishing opportunities only to those pieces in pristine condition but also to those who (with proper guidance) show great potential of crossing into greatness. 

Our editors may send out revisions notes to potential contributors to assist in the editing process and to work a piece into publish-ready condition. We would rather work with a great writer to produce a perfect story than publish lesser works that are more "technically" well-written. However, we place high value on maintaining voice and style and our editors will never ask an author to make changes they are uncomfortable with, will never revise a submission on the author’s behalf (our editors correct only grammatical issues and economize language), and are open to discussion pertaining to revision.

Ultimately, at Grace Notes, the author is always incontrol of their work. But we also expect authors to be open to improvement and to take the revision process seriously. Our notes will point out areas that we feel need work. These notes will be very specific and may include suggested solutions. It is the author's place to use these notes as a guide, to find solutions to problems within the piece, and to execute the needed revisions.

Potential contributors retain all rights and may decline the revision suggestions made by our editors. However, NOTES Magazine cannot guarantee publication in such cases, depending on how crucial the suggested re-writes arein terms of keeping up with our high standards to produce a magazine unlike any other. Author’s receiving revision notes from our editors will also be informed of the importance we are placing on revisions. We ask that, before submitting your work for consideration, you weigh your own preferences carefully and decide whether or not you are open to this process.

If not, we would prefer you didn't submit your work. We are a small staff of volunteers and it takes a great deal of time/energy to produce a beautiful magazine. A great deal of that time/energy is spent helping authors perfect the works they've submitted. If the editorial process is one you find overly difficult, this may not be the publishing experience you're looking for. Please respect our limited resources. 

Contract:

By submitting to Notes Magazine or posting at Notes & Grace Notes, you accept that you have read and understand our guidelines/policies and you agree to abide by these guidelines/policies in your interactions with The Grace Notes Foundation.