Frequently Asked Questions

GENERAL QUESTIONS
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS
STAR RATING & STORY COMMENT QUESTIONS
SUBMISSION QUESTIONS
PODCASTING QUESTIONS
PAYMENT QUESTIONS
ADVERTISING QUESTIONS

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GENERAL QUESTIONS

How do I get in contact with you?
The best way to reach us is with our contact form — it sends your message to our whole editorial team at once, so the first available editor can respond to your question. We’re also active in our social media communities, so you can ask questions and start discussions there too.

Who publishes Every Day Fiction?
EDF was originally published by Every Day Publishing Ltd., a small publishing company founded in 2007 in Vancouver, Canada, by Jordan Ellinger, Camille Gooderham Campbell, and Steven Smethurst. It is now published by Tied Star Books, operated by Camille Gooderham Campbell, still based in Vancouver, Canada.

When was the magazine founded?
Every Day Fiction began soliciting submissions in late July 2007, and started publishing stories on September 1st, 2007.

What other magazines and projects are affiliated with Every Day Fiction?
Every Day Poets was added to our family in the fall of 2008 and began publishing poems on November 1st, 2008. It has been on hiatus since 2014.
Flash Fiction Chronicles was created in early 2009 and was officially launched on March 22, 2009.
Every Day Novels was announced in June 2010, and the first Every Day Novel was serialized in January 2012. Unfortunately, changes in the publishing landscape and the drop in the Canadian dollar have made it impractical for us to continue with this branch of Every Day Publishing after 2015.

Are you associated with Everyday Weirdness or Everyday Genius?
No. The ezines everydayweirdness.com and everydaygenius.com are NOT in any way affiliated with Every Day Publishing.

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SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS

I signed up to receive the daily story by email, but am not getting it. What should I do?
When you signed up, you should have received an automated email from our subscription service, asking you to click a link to activate your subscription. If you did so, and you’re still not receiving subscription emails, please check your spam/junk mail folder and add noreply@specificfeeds.com to your contact list (see below). You should also check your SpecificFeeds preferences to make sure you selected email delivery of the full story, not a snippet. This resolves 99% of most people’s problems.

I was receiving the daily story by email, but I didn’t get one today, even though you have a new story up on the website. Help!?
We use a third party subscription service to handle our subscriptions. They sometimes have hiccups in their service over which we have no control. If you don’t receive any new stories in two or three days, we suggest that you unsubscribe and then re-subscribe as a first step to resolving the problem, and please CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER to make sure your email program hasn’t identified it as spam — this can happen even after you’ve been receiving subscription emails for some time. If none of these steps work, we suggest that you contact your email provider and ask them to look into the issue.

I no longer want to receive your daily emails. How do I unsubscribe?
If you’re subscribed via FeedBurner: At the very bottom of every subscription email we send out, there’s an “unsubscribe now” link; just click on that link, and FeedBurner will take care of it. If you’re subscribed via SpecificFeeds: there’a red “unfollow” button with an X (you may need to enable/download email images to see it); just click the button, and SpecificFeeds will take care of it.

What are FeedBurner and SpecificFeeds and why do you use them?
FeedBurner and SpecificFeeds are websites that provides free email and RSS subscription services with statistics. They occasionally have minor service hiccups, but overall do a satisfactory job, and at this time we have no evidence that competing services would offer an improvement. We currently do not have the resources to set up our own in-house daily subscription system to match what these free services do for us.

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STAR RATING & STORY COMMENT QUESTIONS

What is the star rating system?
The star rating system is a voting system that allows us to see how well a particular story is received by our readership. It helps us understand our readership’s interests and preferences.

How does the star rating system work?
Below every story, underneath the text “Rate this story”, there are five stars outlined in grey. Some of them may or may not be filled in with gold, depending on whether votes have already been placed. When you hold your mouse pointer over the stars, they become highlighted in red — one star (to the left with only the one star highlighted) is the lowest rating you can give, and five stars (to the right with all five stars highlighted) is the highest rating you can give. When you click, your rating is recorded.

Can I change my rating?
No, changing the rating is not a feature of the system. Please click carefully.

I rated a story, but the gold stars are still showing the same rating as before. Was my rating not counted?
The gold stars show the average of all ratings made. Please be assured that every rating is counted; however, once about 15 total ratings have been made, a single rating doesn’t visibly shift the average as displayed to one decimal place.

I see that readers can comment on the stories. Does that mean EDF is a critique group or place to workshop stories?
No. EDF is a magazine. We allow reader comments because many authors appreciate the feedback they receive.

Do I have to create a Disqus account or log in through social media in order to comment?
No. When you click in the comment box, you’ll see some “sign in with” options and also a text field that says “or pick a name” — clicking in that field brings up additional fields for your email address and password, should you wish to create a Disqus account, but below that you should see a checkbox labelled “I’d rather post as guest”. Checking this box removes the password field, at which point the name you enter is temporary for that comment only (we do still require your email address for security and troll-policing purposes, but it’s confidential and is also stored for that comment only); no account or profile is created.

Should I use the comments to nitpick and point out typos?
We would prefer that you contact us about small grammatical errors and simple typos so that we can correct them without drawing other readers’ attention away from the story, but you’re welcome to start a discussion about an author’s choice of, say, overall dialogue formatting or the use of a particular point of view.

Are the comments only for praising stories I like?
Certainly not. We don’t expect everyone to like every story.  Differing opinions are a given, and criticism is welcome, otherwise the comments would become a praise parade rather than a true discussion. The vast majority of our commenters are helpful and supportive even when delivering a less-than-glowing opinion, and we value that.

Do you censor the comments or can I say anything I please?
We do not tolerate inappropriately foul comments, aspersions cast on authors’ future careers, or mockery and nastiness of any sort. The comments are NOT intended as a place for gratuitous cruelty and hurtful put-downs, and while we don’t like to censor anyone, we find ourselves occasionally forced to delete mean-spirited remarks that cross boundaries of respect and common courtesy.  Unfortunately, we have had a few of these incidents over the years, and would like our community to know that people who abuse the privilege of commenting can and will have their nasty comments removed (and, if necessary, their IP addresses flagged as a source of spam).

My comment isn’t showing up! What should I do?
Comments that don’t show up immediately were probably snagged by our spam-catcher; in order to prevent the comment threads from being flooded with spam, we have fairly stringent parameters that cause suspect comments to be held for moderation. You can a) just wait, since we check the spam box several times a week to rescue genuine comments, or b) contact us to let us know that your comment isn’t getting through.

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SUBMISSION QUESTIONS

I can’t find where/how to submit my story. Help?
As of November 2016, we’re using the Submittable platform to manage our submissions. Click here for our Submittable portal.

It has been n days since I submitted my story, have you read it yet?
Our response times vary depending on the number of submissions we’re getting. Our target response time is 60 to 75 days. The submission guidelines state that we will respond to you within a maximum of 90 days. If you have reason to believe that we’ve held your story beyond 90 days, please contact us so that we can look into it.

I submitted a story prior to November 2015 and never got a response; what happened?
Unfortunately, when we experienced a catastrophic server and database crash in November 2015, our entire submissions database (including all author contact information) was irretrievably lost. We were not able to recover any stories that were under consideration at the time.

How do I know that you’ve even received my submission?
Our online submission system sends an auto-response email confirming that your submission has been received.  If you do not get a confirmation email within 24 hours of submitting your story, please contact us so we can check our database for your story.

How many stories can I submit to you at once?
You can have up to 3 stories in our slush pile at any given time. Once we accept or reject one of your stories, you can submit anther one.

Do you accept previously published work?
No, we are not interested in reprints at this time. Please note that if you’ve published your story on a publicly accessible website of any kind, even your own personal blog, it is considered published and therefore inappropriate for our market.

Do you accept poetry?
Every Day Fiction publishes flash fiction. While our guidelines don’t absolutely rule out poetry, any piece submitted to EDF will be judged as a story for plot and character development, regardless of how good it might be as a poem.

What is the maximum and minimum length you’re looking for in a story?
Our firm maximum word count is 1000 words, and we reject stories unread if they exceed it. There is no minimum word count, but you should be aware that we are looking for complete stories with plot and character development.

What is the slush?
The terms “slush” and “slush pile” are used in the publishing industry to refer to unsolicited manuscripts. It does not imply any disrespect to you or your story.

Is it okay to submit a story if I’m under eighteen years old?
Our readership is adult so we assume that our authors are adults (meaning that no special favour or consideration is given to younger writers) but we don’t specifically rule anyone out. However, if you’re under eighteen (or under the age of majority in your country, whatever that is), please ask a parent, guardian, teacher or writing mentor to read over the contract with you when it pops up during the submission process, so that you understand the agreement you’re making. If you (and/or the responsible adults in your writing life) need help understanding the contract terms and what they mean, please feel free to ask us — sometimes publishing terms and contract language can be a little confusing if they’re new to you, no matter how plain we try to be.

I submitted the wrong version of my story. How can I replace it with the correct version?
If you’ve submitted the wrong version of your story, or if you’ve revised it since it was submitted, you may withdraw the original version by contacting us, and then submit your revised version. Please note that you will lose your place in the queue for consideration if you do this, so it’s not something we recommend for minor tweaks (you can always update those after acceptance, if they aren’t the sort of changes that will make or break our decision).

I’ve been asked to submit a revision; how do I do that?
You can submit it through our Submittable portal using the link for resubmissions that was provided in your revision request email.

My story was accepted and I’d like to make some changes prior to publication; how do I do that?
Your acceptance email contains a special link for revisions after acceptance. If you’ve deleted or can’t find your acceptance email, please contact us and we’ll send you the link again.

My story was published and something about it wasn’t right; can it be fixed after publication?
Yes, we are able to edit the story text after publication. Please contact us to let us know what the problem is, and we’ll help you sort it out. If the issue is a major/noticeable one (e.g., the published story was not the correct draft/version and the whole piece needs to be replaced), we’ll let readers know in the comment thread so that no one is confused.

My story has some quoted song lyrics in it; is that okay?
Unfortunately, no — not unless you have written permission from the rights holder. Since we do not have the time or resources to manage copyright permissions, please do not send us works with quoted song lyrics. You may use song titles and the names of composers, lyricists, and/or performers, and you may paraphrase or refer to the song lyrics, but we are unable to publish stories with directly quoted song lyrics unless they are in the public domain (written before 1920). If you do have written permission from the rights holder (e.g., your friend wrote a song and you’ve quoted it with his/her permission), please note it at the bottom of your story text.

What do the scores mean in the feedback about my submission?
Our reviewer scores are an internal scale measuring only the story’s fit for EDF (where 1 means the reviewer believes the story is not right for EDF and 5 means the reviewer feels the story is perfect for EDF).

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PODCASTING QUESTIONS

Do you have exclusive podcast rights to the stories you publish?
No, our podcast rights are not exclusive or even restricted to FIRST podcast rights, so feel free to sell or give those rights elsewhere. We only ask that the podcast mention EDF as the original publisher of the story. If you do have an EDF story released as a podcast elsewhere, we’d love to know about it so we can share it with our readers — contact us, or share your news with the EDF community on social media.

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PAYMENT QUESTIONS

Do you pay for the stories/poems you publish, and if so, how much?
Yes. We pay USD$3 for each story published at EDF, via PayPal only.

How does the payment system work?
When you receive your acceptance email, you will be asked to “confirm the terms of the acceptance” — this brings up a field where you can either input the email address associated with the PayPal account where you’d like to receive the payment, or else let us know that you’re donating it back to the magazine. Please type carefully to be sure the email address is correct, as we will copy it exactly to send payment.

Can I donate my payment back to Every Day Fiction?
Yes. When you receive notification of an acceptance, Submittable asks you to agree to the terms of that acceptance, and at that time you can either note your PayPal address in the space provided OR you can indicate that you wish to donate the payment back to EDF. We gratefully appreciate any donations.

Does choosing to donate or accept payment affect the way my future submissions might be read?
Not at all. The payment process is completely unconnected to the slush reading process.

When can I expect to receive my payment?
Our contract states that you will be paid within 45 days of publication. We typically process payments in one or two batches a month. Please note that if you haven’t given us a PayPal address, we can’t pay you; payment information sent more than 45 days after publication will be processed with the next batch.

What if I forget to fill in my PayPal address until after the story is published?
If you forgot to respond to the acceptance email, or you responded with a nice note of thanks but forgot to include your PayPal information, you can still be paid for up to a year after your story’s publication. Just use the contact form to send us a message — be sure to include the title of your story and date of publication, and explain that you need to request payment for an archived story. If it has been more than a year since your story was published, we will assume that you chose to donate the payment back to EDF.

What if I don’t have a PayPal account or don’t want to use PayPal?
Unfortunately, since we deal with authors around the world, PayPal is the only cost-effective means we have of making payments — the service fees and mailing costs for cheques and money orders would be prohibitive. If you wish to receive payment from us, it is your responsibility to establish a PayPal account. If PayPal is a problem for you, please contact us to discuss the issue before submitting your work.

Why don’t you use something else instead of PayPal?
Unfortunately, there is currently no other cost-effective option for international online payment that we know of. If you have a better solution for us, please let us know!

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ADVERTISING QUESTIONS

I have a great website! Can we do a link exchange?
We don’t currently have a place on our site for link exchanges, though we may add one at some point in the future. You’re also welcome to share your link with our community on social media. The best way to get your link in front of our readers, though, is to submit a story for publication — we’re happy to add links to our authors’ bios.

I would like to advertise on your site. Where, when, and how much?
Every Day Fiction is entirely supported through Patreon, and banner ads are one of the Gold Tier supporter rewards. For only $5 USD a month, you can have your banner ad in rotation at the story foot and/or the upper right corner of the site.

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Didn’t find an answer to your question here?
Contact us or ask our community for input.