Envelope. If your story is no more
than 5-10 pages, including your cover letter, you're okay to tri-fold it
and send it in a regular #10 envelope. More than that requires a large
mailing envelope (9x12).
Postage. BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to
affix enough postage to get the package there! This is vital! Editors do
not want to receive your manuscript with postage due! This is annoyingly
unprofessional, overly presumptuous, and just plain rude. Even if you
didn't intend to be unprofessional, presumptuous, or rude, you will have
succeeded in being all three. It isn't the editor's responsibility to
pay for your postage!
SASE. A
SASE is a Self-Addressed
Stamped Envelope, and it's just what it sounds like: an envelope that
you've addressed TO YOURSELF and applied enough postage to get it from
the editor's location to you. It is this envelope the editor will use to
send you back a rejection. It is vital to include a SASE! Like the
postage issue above, it is unprofessional, presumptuous, and rude to NOT
include a SASE; it isn't the editor's responsibility to pay postage out
of his own pocket just to tell you he isn't going to publish your piece!
If you're in the United States and sending to an editor in the United
States, a self-addressed envelope with one first-class stamp should do
it. If you don't send a SASE, you won't receive a response—moreover, an
editor may well simply throw your story away out of disgust that you
failed to observe the most basic of professional rules in this business.
IRCs.
International Reply Coupons
are needed if you're sending a submission to an editor outside your
country. This is a huge problem with Americans sending subs to Canadian
publications; the Americans affix U.S. postage to their SASEs, which is
of absolutely no use at all to someone sending a letter to you from
Canada.
Want your story returned? If you
want the editor to return your story to you if he chooses not to use it,
a first class stamp won't do it. Whatever you paid to send the story is
what you need to include for postage. If the story had to be sent in a
9x12 mailer, enclosed a self-addressed, stamped 9x12 mailer. It's a good
idea to not request stories be returned; it's cheaper and easier to
print new ones.
