How Can I Submit Stories To The Kristen Fiction Archives?

I’ve been keeping this brief guide handy to help people out. The Kristen Fiction Archives for submissions and contribute have a page for the full set of house rules which tells you whether to upload or send by email. To upload directly you need to have created an account and logged in. Then your manuscript should be formatted (standard font, etc. with consistent chapter breaks etc.) and saved as a file of the required type (eg .docx or .pdf). It’s also a good idea to prepare a brief synopsis, a set of tags, any relevant content warnings and a one-paragraph author bio. Email submission should have a clear subject line (e.g. ‘Submission: Title of Work by Pen Name’) and synopsis in the body of the email with the attachment. It’s also a good idea to be polite and patient and to leave plenty of time (at least a couple of weeks) before following up on submission with an admin contact or editor. Also I try to go through my work for any typos before sending off – it makes me feel all professional and wonder-full afterwards.

My preferred way of doing things when submitting work to an online archive like Kristen’s is to treat it much like a submission to a small press. First, read their submission guidelines thoroughly to find out what types of stories they’re looking for, how long they can be, what type of cover they want, etc. Whether they accept work to be uploaded in installments or only complete stories, as well as whether they want the complete finished work uploaded at once, all need to be taken into account. Then, create a submission package: a manuscript formatted with 12pt serif or sans font and chapter headings uniform throughout; a one-paragraph pitch for your work; a very brief author bio; a list of tags and content warnings for the work. File names should be clear and consist of the following: LastName of Author,Pseudonym Used By Author,Title of Work,Chapter #. (For example: “Smith?TheGreatStoryOfMyLifeChapter1.docx”)

Follow any specific guidance for formatting email subjects and bodies. Be sure to attach any additional materials such as forms requested by the archive. Fill out all fields when uploading through a portal and use the specified language for fields such as language, rating, and pairings. Read over any contributor agreement carefully to understand what rights you will be granting to the archive and for how long your work will be hosted on their site. Many archives also offer beta readers or a pre-publication queue. I highly recommend going through any of these steps in order to catch any typos and ensure that your work is the best that it can be before it is published. I keep a submission log with the date I submitted, what file I sent, and when I expect to hear back from the archive. This helps me to keep track of everything and avoid confusion.

In practicality, I can only recommend checking out the official submission page for the Kristen fiction archives for the most current and comprehensive set of guidelines for submissions. Most notable are whether or not direct upload, email submission, or even hosted stories on other websites are acceptable. Most websites also require an account to submit stories under a pen name, and even require verification of an email address associated with the account as well.

Format your work before you can upload it. Your work should be written in a readable font (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial) at 12pt. Your chapter headers should consistently be formatted, and there should be a short summary of your work up front, followed by your tags and content warnings. It’s always a good idea to make a backup of any work that you submit online in both .docx and .pdf formats. Some sites may request specific file types or cover sizes for submitted works, so make sure you resize or convert the work as necessary before submitting.

I follow any extra instructions given. Typically this means that I label my files with my author’s pen name and the title of the story, include a short author bio with contact e-mail address if requested, and I can request beta readings by the community members. Should I be emailing in my story I make sure to use a suitable subject line, and paste the synopsis from the top of the story into the body of the email. There’s only one feeling that surpasses the excitement that I feel every time I submit a story, and that is the feeling that I get when I retrieve the story from my email account after it has been posted on the Kristen fiction archives site. It’s like releasing a bottle into the sea, you never know where it will end up.