image by Heather Holbrook and Altered Arts
I’m again really excited to have my art work published in a magazine! My altered French themed book is in the Fall 09 issue of Altered Arts magazine on pages 44, 45 and 47. It’s so much fun to see your work in print and it’s not as difficult as you might think. I’m no expert but I wanted to share some of my tips if you are interested in trying to get your work published.
Submission Guidelines: Most magazine that accept submissions have guidelines, they might print them in the magazine or on their website, be sure to follow their guideline directions very closely. Some want you to sent them a photo of the item and then after they’ve accepted it they’ll ask you to mail the item to them. Some magazines you have to mail the item to them and then they’ll let you know if they are interested in publishing it or not. Some will return your item to you (you have to pay for return postage) and some do not return submissions at all, so be sure to check if you want your item back. If your item is to be returned to you it can take a very long time (I’ve had items held for 6 months) before they are returned, so don’t sent something you aren’t willing to part with for awhile.
Style: When submitting to a magazine be sure that what your sending matches the style or “vibe” of that magazine, in other words if they only seem to print artsy or funky items don’t sent something cutesy. Also look for “calls”, when a magazine is look for something to fit with an upcoming theme they’ll ask for submissions with that theme, that’s a good place to start if you aren’t sure what they might be looking for.
Compensation: Some magazines pay if you are published and some do not, some might send you product or merchandise as compensation. If payment is important to you find out before you submit.
Rights: Some magazines might ask you to sign an agreement after you are published stating that you can not publish that work any place else (including on-line) and they will probably ask that it be removed from any online sites like blogs, forums, galleries etc. Also it’s always a good idea to only submit an item to one place at a time.
Don’t take it personally: If you submit something and it’s not published don’t take it personally, magazine receive lots of submissions and it must be a very difficult task to choose what to publish, maybe they loved your item but it just wasn’t what they needed at the time (I once had an item sent to a sister publication almost a year later to be published) or maybe you didn’t follow the guidelines correctly. It’s also a game of numbers, the more you submit the higher your chances become of getting something published. So if you don’t get published you know what they say: try, try again!
I hope this has helped give you a little more information and encouragement to send your artwork to a magazine, so what are you waiting for, send something in already 
-Heather