Finding the Bacon: Market Listings

Sable Jak, Editor

The Harvest
It must be because I'm country-bred and, on top of that, cold-country bred. As soon as summer begins to wind down, these Wisconsin roots of mine start sizing up the pantry, planning where to put all the supplies, just in case we get snowed in. Yeah, like that's going to happen here in Seattle where I now live.

Nonetheless, harvest time is fast approaching, and with the harvest comes great food, and great food means paging through food magazines for good recipes, new gadgets and nutritional information. That's what this issue of "Finding the Bacon" is all about: Food.

The Herb Companion
Real Health Media
243 E. Fourth St.
Loveland, CO 80537 USA
Ph: 970-663-0831
Fx: 970-663-0909
http://www.discoverherbs.com 
or
http://www.discoverherbs.com/NewFiles/Herb%20Companion.html 
E-Queries: Yes or through snail mail at the above address.
Contact: Editor
Email: HerbCompanion@RealHealthMedia.com 
Writer's guidelines online: http://www.discoverherbs.com/NewFiles/Herb%20Companion.html 
(Note: this is the same address as the magazine site. Once in the magazine simply click on the sidebar notation: "Writer Guidelines.") Photographer's & Illustrator's guidelines are at the same address.
Pays: Pays on publication. $.33/published word. "We reserve the right to edit your material as necessary to fit the style, format, or other requirements of <I>The Herb Companion. For feature articles a copy of the edited manuscript may be submitted to you for review before publication."
Rights: FNASR. Byline given. Issues are planned six to twelve months in advance and materials intended for a particular issue must be in their hands at least four months before the month of publication.
Description: The Herb Companion is published six times a year in February, April, June, August, October, and December.
Circulation: 180,000 Readers: Herb enthusiasts
Needs: From the website guidelines: "The Herb Companion is a bimonthly magazine devoted to the interests of avocational herb gardeners, cooks, crafters, and general enthusiasts. In each issue we attempt to encourage and inform both the novice and the more experienced. A typical issue will include practical horticultural information, original recipes illustrating the use of herbs, thoroughly researched historical insights, step-by-step directions for herbal craft projects, profiles of notable individuals in the field, helpful hints of many kinds, and book reviews."

Northwest Palate
P.O. Box 10860
Portland, OR 97296 USA
Ph: 503-224-6039 or: 1-800-398-7842
Fx: 503-222-5312
http://www.nwpalate.com 
E-Queries: Yes.
Contact: Editor
Email: editorial@nwpalate.com 
Writer's guidelines online: http://www.nwpalate.com/write.html. For a complete set of guidelines including rates and rights email or call as online guidelines are partial.
Pays: Pays on publication. Payment will be made after receipt of invoice, within 30 days of publication. "We pay $150 for "Last Course." For all other articles, payment is 25 cents per word, based on published number of words."
Rights: From the guidelines: "We purchase articles for one-time use in Northwest Palate with the understanding that the articles have not appeared previously and will not be offered to a similar publication for a year following their appearance in Northwest Palate." Byline 50% kill fee on assigned stories.
Needs: From the guidelines: "…submitted via email or on diskette (our second choice). Diskettes must be accompanied by a clearly-printed copy of the story." Also: "Bear in mind that we plan our editorial calendar as much as a year in advance, and we follow the seasons closely. All wine reviews and special tastings are handled in-house or on assignment only."

Veggie Life Magazine
1041 Shary Circle
Concord, CA 94518 USA
Ph: 925-671-9852
Fx: 925-671-0692
http://www.veggielife.com/ 
E-Queries: Yes or snail mail with clips (queries preferred to completed manuscripts.) Please NO phone calls. Sample Issues of Veggie Life are available with a 9x12 SASE for $3.95 + $1 (S&H) and can be ordered from the editorial offices.
Contact: Editor
Email: VeggieEd@aol.com 
Writer's guidelines online: http://www.veggielife.com/mag/writersguidelines.htm 
Pays: Pays on acceptance & publication, i.e., half is paid upon acceptance, half upon publication. $.35/word, $35/recipe, $25/photo.
Rights: EGW Publishing buys all rights to manuscripts and art on a work-for-hire basis only. One-time unpaid photographic agreements are also made in certain cases.
Description: Veggie Life is published four times a year primarily in the U.S. and Canada: Autumn (August-October), Winter (November-January), Spring (February-April), and Summer (May-July). Veggie Life is the premiere vegetarian cooking magazine with articles on optimum nutrition and natural healing for today's health-conscious consumer.
Needs: From the online guidelines: "All articles must be credible and authoritatively written. We're not interested in personal opinion (product/company bashing), dogma, or religious beliefs. Provide us with clear, concisely written information indicating your expertise in a particular topic, and you'll have our attention. Writing résumé and related published clips are a plus! Please do not send us any articles on why you became vegetarian or any related spin-off on the subject."
Note: The online guidelines are very thorough, providing information on how to submit recipes (they have a style they prefer) to descriptions of their various department and word-count needs. Look over the guidelines carefully, and, as always, read the magazine before sending in a query.

Home Cooking
House of White Birches, Publishers
306 E. Parr Rd.
Berne, IN 46711 USA
Ph: 219-589-4000 ext. 396
Fx: 219-589-8093
http://www.homecooking-magazine.com/ 
E-Queries: Yes, and snail mail. Send for a sample copy with 6x9 envelope and three first-class stamps.
Contact: Shelly Vaughan James, Editor
Email: homeuscooking@whitebirches.com 
Or 
customer_service@whitebirches.com. 

Pays: Pays on acceptance roughly 45 days later. Pays $50-$300 for assigned articles and $50-$175 for unassigned. Column and Department submissions pay $50-$100, fillers are $15-$15.
Photos: Purchases one-time rights and negotiates payments with individuals.
Rights: All or first rights. Byline given. Seasonal material should be submitted eight months in advance. Accepts simultaneous submissions and reprints.
Description: Published twelve times a year and provides pages of recipes for home cooks every issue.
Circulation: 70,000.
Needs: Hints, recipes, news, new products, personal experiences, book reviews and how-to information. This is not just a recipe magazine. The publishers want to present a fully rounded magazine to their readers, providing everything from nutritional information to fast recipes for those folks who want to cook good, healthy meals in a minimum of time.
(Editor's note: Home Cooking has a specific style so it is best to make sure you read the magazine cover-to-cover to know it and avoid getting a rejection.)

Chile Pepper: The Magazine of Spicy Foods
River Plaza
1701 River Run, Suite #702
Fort Worth, Texas 76107 USA
Ph: 888-774-2946 (taken from their website)
Ph: 814-877-1048
Fx: 817-877-8870
http://www.chilepepper.com 
E-Queries: Yes, and snail mail. Chile Pepper Magazine is always looking for talented and knowledgeable writers. Send #10 SASE for writers guidelines or log onto the website and check under "contact us." You'll find a pulldown menu where you can ask about freelance writing.
Contact: David K. Gibson, Editor
Email: Email samples of your work to: editor@chilepepperhq.com.
Writer's guidelines online: No.
Pays: Pays on publication. $300 minimum for feature articles, 1,000 to 3,000 words.
Photos: Buys one-time rights. Pays $25 minimum per photo, needs captions and identification of subject.
Rights: FNASR, second (reprint) rights and electronic rights. Byline. Kill fee. Seasonal material should be submitted six months in advance.
Description: Published six times a year.
Circulation: 85,000. Readers: Lovers of hot, spicy food.
Needs: Obviously every article must have as its focus spicy food. Those of us who enjoy a meal that makes us tear-up relish reading about new products, how-to's (that includes growing-our-own) travel destinations, and yes, especially humor.

Now for the fun of it!
Considering that this issue is about food, I just about fell over when I first saw the title of this magazine. When I visited the site, it said that it was down until December. I've emailed the editor, but as of my submitting this issue of "Finding the Bacon" to my own editor, I haven't heard back. I simply MUST include them, if anything, for the fun of it.

Dragon Soup
7971 Hunter St.
Burnaby, British Columbia
V5A2B
Canada
Ph: not available
Fx: not available
http://www.dragonsoup.com 
E-Queries: Yes, and (from what I could gather) via snail mail.
Contact: June Dragon
Email: juneling@dragonsoup.com 
Writer's guidelines online: No
Pays: Pays CDN$.005 (yup, a half cent)
Rights: FNASR. Byline given.
Description: SF, fantasy magazine.
Needs: Fiction, poetry, fantasy, horror and SF, nonfiction, articles, book reviews, essays, interviews, columns.

I've learned through my journeys across the web that, although we writers all prefer to be paid well for our writing, we all have a site our two we work with for the sheer joy of it. I venture to say that Dragon Soup is such a site. Obviously, if I haven't managed to gather a great deal of information (although I'll keep trying; I have a small tale or two of my own that I'd like to submit) so you're going to have to check them out on your own. But then again, you should always check out any magazine or site thoroughly before submitting your work.

To finish off this issue of "Finding the Bacon" I simply HAVE to include the following URL: http://regalbakingcompany.com/. Click on it and see the Regal Baking Company's 7½-foot-tall gingerbread castle. Sometimes surfing the web turns up wondrous sites (and sights.)

On a more serious note: In this, the harvest time and a time of plenty, please remember those who are without and, if you are able, donate to your local food banks.

Until the next "Finding the Bacon," keep writing.

Sable

-- SJ
©2001 Sable Jak

Sable Jak is a freelance writer with a special love for radio drama and screenwriting. She writes for Absolute Write www.absolutewrite.com  and Script Magazine's ezine www.scriptmag.com, is a charter member of The Screenplayers www.screenplayers.net/screenplayersnet.html and has a mystery radio series, "A Phil Byrnes Mystery," on www.virtuallyamerican.com.  She's also an avid crafter. Sable lives in Seattle with her actor-husband and their kitties. In the language of her ancestors her name "Sable" means "sword." She feels it's an appropriate name for a writer and her mighty pen.