INVITATION TO SUBMIT
Authors, you’re invited to submit a short romance to read-a-romance.com.
First, I suggest you head over to our ABOUT US page and discover the vision of this website. Once you’ve read that, come back here and I’ll explain how contributing will benefit you.
Now, what’s in it for me? you’re asking. Marketing 101 says that one of the best ways to sell new products is to give away free samples first. And unless the entire romance reading population already knows your name, you have a new product! You could, of course, put a free story up on your website, but how much traffic is Google driving there? The search engines have already found read-a-romance.com and are positioning us in the first few pages for several search phrases. Even before launching this site, we’ve had hundreds of visitors from all over the world, simply because they’ve trolled the search engines looking for romance stories. And we want to share that with you!
Read-a-romance.com offers you a location to advertise your writing and gain readership. All without costing you anything but time and creativity. We’ve done the market research and created a site that will help drive traffic to your website. While here, a reader can sample your work, and if you’re a regular contributor, you’ll have a showcase page, which will in turn provide a gateway to the book page on your own site.
Effectively promoting your work is a dilemma for many romance writers, and read-a-romance.com gives you an option that won’t cost a chunk of your royalties.
We are interested in acquiring the following:
Contemporary
Chick-Lit
Historical (any time period prior to ours)
Western
Young Adult
Sci-Fi / Time Travel
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Suspense
If your story is accepted, you should hear back from us within six weeks. At that time, we’ll let you know the week your story will be posted. If you haven’t heard back in eight weeks, please email us at submit [at] read-a-romance [dot] com and ask for an update. Please use the term “follow up” and your title in the subject line.
Please note that Read-a-Romance.com reserves the right to edit any grammatical or spelling errors before posting.
The Guidelines:
- Minimum actual word count of 1,250 preferred, but we will consider something shorter. Maximum word count is 3,000. Occasionally, we’ll post longer stories, but for the time being, they’ll be by invitation only.
- Submissions must be from authors–print or e-book–published or contracted by a house recognized by the Romance Writer’s of America (or its equivalent in another country), OR they will have won a writing contest hosted by one of said publishing houses. *
- This is an all ages site, so no erotica / romantica! All accepted stories will be suitable for even the youngest of readers. That means no sex, language, nudity or violence. That does not mean lacking in intensity or emotion.
- Treat your submission as if you were subbing to a publisher. Please check for accuracy in grammar and spelling before you send.
- Send your submission to submit [at] read-a-romance [dot] com. The subject line should include the word “submit” as well as your title and word count. The top of the body should include the name you write under, your email address, your website/blog URL, your genre and a brief description of your story. DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS AS THEY WILL BE DELETED UNOPENED. YOUR FORMATTED STORY SHOULD BE CUT AND PASTED IN RTF FORMAT INTO THE BODY OF YOUR EMAIL.
*Almost there, but not quite? If you have positive feedback on your writing—from AN EDITOR of one of the above publishing houses—we will consider your story. However, any submissions from unpublished authors will first go through a grammar and spell check process. If you don’t pass that test, it’s an automatic rejection.
If you are an unpublished author who has decided to submit, please put “unpublished” as the first word in the subject line of your email and then follow the rest of the guidelines.
From time to time, submissions may be closed due to volume or other issues. You will be notified here. Any submissions that come in during these time periods will be deleted, so please, always check before submitting!
So writers, send us your stories. We hope to start off with one or two free reads a week, but the more we receive, the more we post. The more we post, the more visitors. And the more visitors, your chances of gaining readers increases exponentially.
Have questions? Please forward them to info [at] read-a-romance [dot] com. The subject line should include the word “question” as well as your pen name.
L-J Greene
