That's Life! (Australia) guidelines

The fiction editor at That's Life has kindly sent their latest guidelines for the blog -

that's life! Fast Fiction Guidelines

that's life! Fiction Guidelines

Publication

There are two ways we publish fiction:

- A one-page story in the weekly edition of that's life! magazine

- A range of one, two, three and four page stories in our quarterly Fast Fiction magazine, released seasonally (Summer/Spring/Autumn/Winter)

Sending us a story

We accept only emailed submissions. Posted hard-copy stories will no longer be considered. Email your story, for both the weekly magazine and quarterly magazine, to fastfiction@pacificmags.com.au

Format

If possible, please send your stories in Microsoft Word format, as an attachment to the email. Please do not paste/write your story into the body of the email.

Send one attachment per email - please do not attach multiple stories.

Please do not heavily format the story with tabs or headings, and use single spacing between sentences and single quote marks.

Include your name and contact details.

Include the following in the subject and body of the email:

- Story Name

- Theme

- Word Count

For example: The Magician, Spooky, 650 words

Writer's Agreement

We have a new Writer's Agreement in place and you MUST complete and sign it for your story to be published with us.

If we don't have an agreement from you and we'd like to use one of your stories, we will email it to you, when a story is commissioned, for it to be completed, signed and returned.

Themes

In the weekly magazine, we run a wide range of stories and do not publish them with strict themes, except for the annual events below. Please note for these themes we will need to receive submissions around two months before the event.

- Australia Day (Jan)

- Back to School (Jan/Feb)

- Valentine's Day (Feb)

- Easter (April)

- Anzac Day (April)

- Christmas In July (July)

- Mother's/Father's Day (May/Sept)

- Halloween (Oct)

- Melbourne Cup Day (Nov)

- Christmas (Dec)

- New Year's Eve (Dec/Jan)

For the quarterly Fast Fiction, we have SIX themes, so your story should fall into one of the following categories:

- Romance (All things love)

- Heartwarmer (Sweet stories/happy endings)

- Thriller (Keeps you guessing until the end)

- Revenge (Someone gets their just desserts)

- Sixth Sense (Spooky/Scary/Spiritual/Mystic/Fate and Fortune)

- Light Bite (Everything else! A fun, easy read)

Word Counts

1 page = 600 – 650 words

2 pages = 1200-1400 words

3 pages = 1600-1800 words

These are approximate and the final word count printed will depend on the design of the page/s. You don't need to overly cut or edit your story to fit the word counts.

Rights and Exclusivity

We will now accept stories that have either:

- Never been published anywhere previously worldwide.

- Not been published in an English speaking publication. If it's been published in English, in the UK or USA for example, unfortunately we can no longer consider your story, so please do not submit.

Replies

If you have not heard anything from us in 90 days, it is unlikely your story will be used at this time. You are welcome to resubmit stories six months after your first submission.

Please understand that due to the bulk of emails we receive, we are unable to reply individually to submissions, nor can we reply to follow up correspondence asking if stories have been received, read or accepted.

Acceptance

If there's a story of yours we'd like to use, you will receive an email indicating that:

- We'd like to publish your story in an upcoming issue of that's life! weekly magazine OR we would like to publish your story in the next edition of the Fast Fiction quarterly

- We will ask if the story is still available to purchase and let you know the amount to invoice for if this is the case

Payment

All invoices will be submitted to the finance department when the issue is sent to print.

Please note the payment is for how many pages are published, not the pages/word count of your unedited original submission.

The payment rates are as follows but may vary for special publications:

that's life! weekly magazine (one-page story) = $300

Fast Fiction quarterly

1 page = $200

2 pages = $300

3 pages = $400

Subject Matter

We are looking for humorous, clever, positive, contemporary stories with a strong and easy-to-follow plot. It's a good idea to read several issues of the magazines to get the flavour of the type of fiction we publish.

Avoid straightforward romance - boy meets girl and they live happily ever after. Also avoid stories narrated by animals or babies, and it can be confusing if you have too many characters. A maximum of four is usually best.

If the story has a twist it should arise from the story, rather than from a detail kept from the reader. To check your twist, imagine your story were being made into a film - would the surprise still work?

Please remember that that's life! is a family magazine so graphic murders, sex crimes and domestic violence are not acceptable.

We normally write in chronological order, so please keep events in sequence and avoid 'jumping' around time slots, as this can be confusing.

Common twists to avoid:

• The heroine/narrator is revealed to be a cat, dog, car, possum, tree or ghost!
• A partner's mysterious arrangements turn out to be for a surprise party
• The perpetrator's murder plan backfires and s/he eats the poison
• A woman meets up with a handsome "stranger" for a steamy rendezvous and it turns out to be her husband
• Someone nervous about a first day at school turns out to be the teacher; or about a wedding, the vicar; or an interview, the interviewer.
• A woman spots her boyfriend/man of her dreams with a beautiful blonde lady - who turns out to be his sister
• Anything involving twins
• A murder/death actually turns out to be part of a play rehearsal

It's not that we would never use a story with these plot lines, but bear in mind we do get a lot of them. So your story would need a fresh angle to stand out.

If you don't hear from us...

If your story isn't accepted it can be for any number of reasons. Sometimes we have already published, or have in stock, a similar story. Or we may feel it will not appeal to our readers. But this does not mean we will not like another of your stories, so don't lose heart. Keep writing and sending them in!

That's Life (Australia) Fiction Guidelines

That's Life is a weekly Australian magazine which carries fiction. They also have a quarterly fiction special called Fast Fiction. You can find the official guidelines for both here. These do change, for example the rules about 'rights and exclusivity' have been updated, so do check regularly.

You can also download a copy of the writer's agreement, or contract, which you'll be asked to sign if your story is accepted.

I haven't been to Australia, so I'm illustrating the post with one of their suggested themes.

Word counts

I've had a few queries lately about word counts for different magazines. Below is the latest information I have - but do keep checking guidelines as they can change.

Allas (Sweden)

This Swedish magazine count characters not words and will translate any accepted stories into Swedish, so getting it right won't be an exact science for those writing in English.

They ask for either 8,000 to 9,000 OR 12,000 to 14,000 characters. 

I estimate this to be either just under 1,000 words or approximately 1,500 and have been successful with submissions at those lengths.

Woman's Weekly (UK)

Either 900 to 1,000 words, 1,800 to 2,000 words or 2,300 to 8,000 words. 

The cannot use anything between 1,000 and 1,800, so please don't send those.

That's Life (Australia) 

1 page = 600-900 words

2 pages = 1200-1500 words

3 pages = 1600-2000 words

4 pages = 2200-2600 words

"These are approximate and the final word count printed will depend on the design of the page/s. You don't need to overly cut or edit your story to fit the word counts."

People's Friend (UK)

1,200 to 3,000 for the regular magazine. 4,000 words are accepted for the specials. They can also consider 10,000 word crime thrillers.

The Weekly News (UK)

1,200 to 1,500. 2,000 word stories may be used occasionally, but Jill will request these.

Take a Break's Fiction Feast (UK)

Confirmed today - They can be a little flexible but prefer 700, 1,200 or 2,000 words. Although they do publish some longer stories, newer writers are requested to stick to these guidelines. 

I have just been sent the latest guidelines and will post them in a few days.

My Weekly (UK)

Varies according to their needs and this market is currently only open to those who've been previously published by them.

Prima (UK)

It was 800 words the last I heard. I'll check up on this.

Candis (UK)

2,300. Commissioned work only.

You (South Africa)

1,500 words

Yours (UK)

1,000 to 1,200 words - confirmed today.

Woman's World (USA)

Last I heard it was 800 words, but that was some time ago and I've requested new guidelines.

Ireland's Own (Ireland)

Confirmed today 1,000 to 1,400 or 2,000.  Further guidelines will be posted in a few days.

I will post any updates and changes I hear about, but PLEASE check official guidelines yourself before writing and submitting work.

Update

It seems I may have jumped the gun, or jumped to conclusions with my last post. Possibly both! Katherine Davison is still with That's Life Fast Fiction and it seems Judie Durrant is dealing with fiction for the weekly magazine. If I find out more, I'll update the update!

I don't have a photo of me jumping anything, but here's one of me standing near a gun (taken by my boss at the time as we were actually working and absolutely definitely not having a snowball fight).

News from Down Under

Thanks to Alan Williams for an update on That's Life in Australia. There is now a new person in charge of fiction - Judie Durrant.

When work is accepted, new author agreements will be sent out for signature. If they're the same ones as can currently be found on the website with the guidelines, there doesn't seem to be any change. Do PLEASE read it through and be sure you understand and agree before signing though. The same thing applies to any other agreement or contract any publisher may send out.

Titles

Woman's Weekly have requested those those who submit by email include the story title in the subject line. Smugness alert - I was already doing that! I think it's a good idea to do this with all publications (unless they say differently) They must get an awful lot of emails with subjects such as 'story submission' making it more time consuming to find the one they want. The Australian magazine That's Life like the title, theme and word count in the subject line.

The Weekly New prefer two word titles. I don't imagine providing one will make a massive difference to our chances of success, but if we can think one up it will save the overworked fiction editor a job if we do get lucky.

The picture shows the castle where Charles was given the title Prince of Wales. Anyway, moving swiftly on ... how important do you think the story title is?