The following are general guidelines for all Critical Mass Rocketworks submissions. Each project will have more specific guidelines laid out in the call for submissions for that specific project. Rocket Surgeons and Known Authors will find their specific guidelines located there as well. Everyone please read and follow all directions exactly.
Every submission should have two parts. One part will be the submission itself in .doc or .docx format. The second part will be a cover letter. First we will lay out the guidelines for cover letters.
Cover letters are our way of getting to know you as a writer and an individual. A preliminary job interview, if you will. We want to make sure that all relationships we form are strong and well met. If we are not to be a good fit, we feel it’s better we know now than later on down the road when feelings of wasted time and effort can come into play. After all, you work hard on your writing and we work hard to put it into print.
Cover letters should contain the following:
An introduction to your story and how it fits with our general writing guidelines as well as the guidelines for the particular project you are submitting for.
The heart of your story. When we read your work, what are we supposed to be getting out of it? Is there a twist? What’s the twist? We need to make sure we know exactly what is going on with every story so that we can judge fairly.
What steps you are willing to take to promote the project you will be a part of in terms of interviews, word of mouth, etc. Please note that we do not allow for fake reviews from friends and family and we will discontinue working with anyone who encourages any kind of shill reviewing.
Your work ethic. We will have deadlines. While writers are notorious for missing deadlines, we have managed to work with plenty who knock deadlines out of the park. We know you’re out there and we know that the rest of you can rise to the challenge if you have enough drive. Show us you’re that writer.
Finally, we need to know that you are completely and 100% fine with heavy content editing. There is a chance that what you submit to us and what we end up with for inclusion into the project is a completely different beast. However, if we choose to work with you it’s because we see that you have talent and we want that on our team. If you are willing to work with us, we will work with you.
Now, what about the submission itself?
Make sure that your submission fits with the specific guidelines of the project you wish to join.
All submissions must be sent to us as .doc or .docx format. We use Word’s Review functionality for our content and copy editing. It will also be beneficial if you have at least a basic understanding of that function or an ability to learn it on the fly.
All submissions must be to us no later than the last day of the open submission window. Anything received past that date will be automatically rejected. Please give us up to two weeks to review all submissions and get back to you with either an accepted or rejected email. Do not hound us as that will not increase your odds.
The first submission you send us is the only submission we will accept. If you missed a word or want to rewrite something, it’s too late once we have it, so make sure that what you send is the best and final version.
We do not accept fan fiction.
Make sure that what you write is completely original and free of any obvious trademarked or copyrighted products and ideas.
Please note that we have our own style that we use for editing and refer to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style for basic requirements.
We will also ask every writer that we work with to join a G+ Community Forum dedicated to their specific project, as it makes it a lot easier for us to reach you all at once and have everyone have a conversation without completely destroying your inbox or having to remember to hit "Reply All".
Still with us? Great! Next, you’ll want to check out the guidelines for the project you’re working on. Select the project you wish to contribute to and we’ll go from there!
A Word on Novels
We will not be accepting any submissions for full length novels until we have the staff needed to handle processing such things. Until that point, the only novels we publish will be from authors we already know and have a working relationship with and only after we are in a position to ask them if they want to write a novel. We do eventually want to get to a point where we can start novel publication, but we just aren't there yet so stay tuned!
A Word on Agents
Critical Mass Rocketworks believes that anything that takes away from a writer is bad. Agents cost writers money. That's bad. We also prefer writers who are comfortable with interacting with us one on one instead of using a go-between. All submissions must be done by the author themselves and all communications must be between CMR and the writers themselves as well.
