How To Send Email Submissions

Email submissions are one of the benefits to recent advancements in technology. Simply put, it means emailing your writing to a publisher rather than mailing it. These submissions can be done in a variety of ways, one is to ‘cut and paste’ your writing into the body of the email, the second is to send an email with the work attached.

Always be sure which style of email submission the publisher is asking for. The information will usually be listed in the writers guidelines supplied by the company. If it isn’t consider contacting the publisher and asking.

While attachments ensure that your work arrives with the same layout and formatting you created, many smaller publishers refuse to open attachments because it puts them at risk of downloading a virus. Larger publishing companies usually have extensive anti-virus software to protect themselves so are often less wary of email submissions with attachments.

‘Cutting and pasting’ your work into an email means that your writing goes in the space where you would normally write your email message (a section referred to as ‘the body of the email’.)

How to ‘cut and paste’ your work into the body of an email
(I’m using Microsoft Word here because it appears to be the most used, other word processing packages will also do it although the process may be slightly different.)

• Open the program you use to send emails. This might be Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail, GMail or something similar.
• Create a blank email as you would normally do if you were about to write one. Usually this is done by either selecting ‘New’, ‘Create Mail’ or something similar.
• Now open Microsoft Word, and bring up the piece of work you wish to submit - you need to see your writing on the screen.
• Highlight the section of this piece of writing that you wish to email. In most cases it would be the whole article or story. If that is the case I would suggest the second of these next two options.

1) This can be done by placing the mouse at the beginning of the writing to be sent, clicking down the left mouse button and, with the button still depressed, dragging the cursor to the end of the section you wish to copy. This should leave the selected writing highlighted. Once this is done let go of the left mouse button, move the cursor on to the highlighted section and click down with the right mouse button. (If you click anywhere other than is highlighted the colouring will disappear and you will need to select it again.) From the window that opens move your mouse on to the word ‘Copy’ and click the left mouse button.

2) If you want to transfer the entire document into an email, click on the word ‘Edit’ in the top left side of the page. (You’ll usually find it under the dark blue bar that says ‘Microsoft Word’.) This will make a drop down menu appear, from that click the left mouse button on ‘Select All’. This will automatically highlight the entire document. Move your cursor onto the highlighted section, click down with the right mouse button and from the list that appears select ‘Copy’.

NB: After highlighting your work make sure you click on ‘Copy’ and not ‘Cut’. If you select the latter all the highlighted text will disappear from the page. To correct this immediately click the right mouse button again and select ‘Paste’. This should return your text to the page. It is also wise to save your writing in MS Word before trying to ‘paste’ so as to lessen the risk of losing your work in the process.

• Now go back to email you opened earlier. It should be in a window underneath the one you just highlighted.
• Move your mouse till it is flashing in the body of the email (the section you would normally write your email message in.) With the right button, click in the space. This will cause a list to appear, from this menu select the ‘paste’ by moving your mouse over the word and clicking your left mouse button.

How to attach a piece of writing to an email
Different email software packages use different words and buttons for this, but in essence the process is always the same. You’re sending an email to the publisher and with it you are sending the story. In less technological times it would have been a bit like sending a letter and slipping your story into the envelope as well.

For the purpose of this email submission imagine you want to attach a short story you have written and saved it on your computer as ‘short-story2’.

• The first thing you need to do is write an email to the publisher. The email maybe one line, it may be twenty, just remember that short, punchy emails are usually best to send to busy people (and publishers are always busy.)
• Once you have written it you need to attach your work to it. This usually entails clicking on a button saying ‘Attach’ or perhaps one that has a picture of a paperclip on it. (If you are unable to find the appropriate button, click on ‘Help’ and type in the word ‘attachments’.)
• Once you have clicked the appropriate button a ‘browse’ option will appear. In this window, from the list of folders and documents saved on your computer, you will need to find your document called ‘short-story2’. Once you find it, click on the document name with the left mouse button to attach it. After that simply follow the prompts to ‘ok’ your selection.
• Once that is done your email submission is all ready to go. So just click on ‘Send’.

While it may take time before ‘cutting and pasting’ and sending attachments becomes something you do without much thought, it’s definitely a skill important to learn. Not just for people who want to make money writing but also for those people who like simply pottering around on the computer.

If the whole concept of sending email submissions is unnerving consider writing and saving a short note instead of a story. Then next time you’re on the computer try ‘cutting and pasting’ it into an email that you’re sending to a friend, asking them to let you know if it arrives. Once you’ve done that try ‘attaching’ it. It’s an ideal way to build up your email submission confidence.


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