Scrappin' without Scraps: Get Published!

Have you ever wanted to get your layouts published in a magazine? Here's a golden opportunity, especially for those of you that use FxFoto!

Digital Scrapbooking Magazine is looking for layouts done with various software for its next issue. The due date is April 16th so you have to act fast!

Here are the details, copied from the Simple Scrapbooks website:

" Digital scrapbookers have a huge variety of programs to choose from for crating layouts and projects. We'd like to see what you're doing with eh software tools you have available. Submit you layout along with the following information:

how long you've been scrapbooking digitally
the name of the program you use, and how long you've been working with it
your favorite feature of this program
step-by-step instructions for achieving any special effect or technique featured in your layout.

Submissions are due no later than Monday April 16. "

You can find all the details in the Digital Scrapbooking Magazine - Software Roundup Call We're not specifically on the list but fall under the "Any other widely available software you are using for digital scrapbooking" category! Let's show them what FxFoto and you can do!!

So a few tips for getting published that I picked up from April Anderton who is the founder of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine. She gave a talk on getting published at the first Digital Scrapbooking Convention in Pennsylvania and I still have the notes!! (Can you say pack rat?) I'm no expert since I've only been published once but let me pass these on to you.

Engaging photos - you want the photos to be interesting and pique our interest enough to stop and take a closer look. Having a subject who makes eye contact with the reader is good and usually one big photo is better than many photos on one page. She showed us two photos of a lighthouse - one with light beam showing and one without - to show that sometimes it is the small things in a photo that can make a big difference.
Remember that your layout will be smaller on the magazine page than in real life. So think about how it will look at 4x4 inches or less. In particular patterned papers may be a problem. Sometimes small patterns disappear at a small size and sometimes large bold patterns take over the layout. You can easily print your FxFoto LO at various sizes and see what it looks like.
Unless it is an article about journaling, make yours 2-3 sentences only. It won't be readable otherwise.
Most magazines like titles (even if you don't). It draws the reader in to look at the LO.
Color - think about when the article will appear and use colors for that season. April pointed out that although you may have the perfect LO about family for the July issue, she wouldn't take it if it was in Christmas colors. But if you redid it in summer colors then it might make it. Of course, if it were a Christmas in July article then it would be fine.
A second point on color - sometimes it pays to be just a wee bit different. The example she used here was winter LOs - they all seem to be white and blue and if you did one with a slightly unusual color, say pink, she might take that just to liven up the color scheme.
Don't just use one kit - mix and match.
Feature a special technique, but not lots of them. Having something cool the magazine can point out gives them a reason to include your LO. But there isn't usually space for a huge dissertation on everything you did so keep it simple.
Don't forget to include everything they need. Read and reread the submission call to make sure you are sending it the right size. For this call it has to be under 100K so use the medium size in FxFoto when you are uploading (and if you need help email me at susan.white@triscape.com) Make sure you have your name, phone number, email address, address and list of credits. They have deadlines and are way too busy to go searching around for your information. So if you don't have it right there, you will just get passed over. And if your file is too big, it may never even get there ( it gets automatically deleted to prevent server crashes). They will contact you if they need a bigger file later. So check and double check before hitting send.
Send the right file type - be sure you send it as the file type they want. In this case, they want a JPEG so be sure you don't send a collage file. Click on Save and then choose Save Image As and it will save as a JPEG.

I hope these help you! Please feel free to email me if you have any questions - I'm happy to help - seswhite@gmail.com And please please let me know if your LO gets picked!! Wouldn't that be cool?