Contributors’ Guide

Reviews:

1. Reviews should be somewhere in the vicinity of 250-500 words long. Give your readers something to sink their teeth into. We will take reviews up to 700 words long and say about 200 words long IF they have been written for other challenges/websites/publications previously.
2. Reviews should include an image of the book’s cover art, no larger than 300 pixels wide. Please upload it to the wordpress site and resize it within the dimensions. JPG or PNG files only please. This file MUST also be uploaded to the featured image section for each post.
3. All book cover art should have a caption with title and author and should link through to a website for readers to buy the book from. Both these can be sorted out through editing the image once you have uploaded it right on the create a post page.
4. Post titles for reviews should be as follows: Author’s Book.
5. Place posts in correct categories before hitting Publish. Please also add tags such as: your name, author’s name, book title, genre, publisher’s name, year of publication and any keywords relating to the subject matter or themes in the books. This ensures you end up in the Google search results faster.
6. If you don’t like a book or parts of a book you can still review it. Please use positive criticism and point out why it doesn’t work for you and remember that this is subjective experience.  You are allowed to state your opinion if you can make an argument for it.
7. Please include links in the text to the author’s website or to any other books mentioned.
8. If you wish to have your review posts on a regular schedule, please inform either Rob or Marisa so we can ensure that between everyone there are posts going up every day.
9. If your review was printed or published online by a major publication and you were paid or given considerable recognition for it, please type the following bold at the start of your piece:
   Previously published in/on [major publication’s name and link] It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the right to reproduce or republish in any form any work you have previously written for another publication, paid or unpaid. Please check before cross-posting.
10. Please ensure that your user profile is filled out especially your bio section (no more than 100 words) and that you have a sufficient photo of yourself. Your short bio will go on the bottom of each post and (once your geek goddess gets it working) on a list of contributors to the site.
11. Please do not be vulgar or crude. A description of something covered in blood is fine, but unnecessary scatological humour and a certain few words starting with ‘f’ and ‘c’ are not. The geek goddess wishes to remain under the illusion that you are all gentlemen. 

Contributors:

1. We are fans of long form journalism. Your feature articles, interviews and op-ed pieces should be between 1000-4000 words long. You can be of any gender in order to contribute. Topics must be something to do with male readers or Australian female authors.
2. Please cite any references you make accordingly. Links in the text are fine and we also accept footnotes denoted (for the moment) by asterisks.
3. Pictures are encouraged. Book cover art must follow guidelines above and be resized to within 300 pixels wide, with caption of title and author, linked through to a website, in JPG/PNG format. You can choose any one of several of your article images for the featured image.
4. When adding pictures in with the text, please align them to the center so that the layout is not unduly messed about with from post to post. Pictures other than book cover art can be up to 450 pixels wide. All pictures must have captions stating the picture title or description and the creator/photographer’s name. All pictures must be linked to the source image if found elsewhere. If they are your own we ask that you do not link them at all or only to your website.
5. Your article/op-ed pieces/interviews WILL be checked before publication. We do not want nasty emails from anyone so if we think you need more references before you can publish or something is not working out citation wise we will ask you to make a few edits. Biases/assumptions and stereotyping will ensure sheer utter annoyance on this end and your piece not being accepted. Racist & sexist and any such similar material will also be treated the same. 
6. If you wish to conduct a video interview with an author, please contact Rob Kennedy or Marisa Wikramanayake so we can make arrangements accordingly for embedding it in a post. All videos MUST be hosted on another site.
7. To contribute you will be added as a user of the site. Please fill out the short bio in your profile and add a good picture of yourself so that this will show up attached to your posts.
8. Please place your post in the appropriate category. Please add tags: any author names, your name, themes or topics in the post, genres, any titles mentioned, any publishers mentioned, any dates etc before hitting Publish.
9. If you wish to contribute feature articles on a regular schedule, please let us know so we can create a schedule accordingly.
10. If you wish to re-publish an article or piece or interview that you have previously published in print or online, paid or unpaid, please ensure that you have the right to do so before submitting it to us. Please also include as a courtesy the following at the top of your post:
    Previously published in/on [publication’s name] and add a link if possible.
11. For interviews: Q & A style is acceptable. Please ensure that you ask questions that are appropriate and courteous.

Promotion:

1. You are responsible for the promotion of your work when it is published on this site. Please include in your short bio & elsewhere in your profile, all your social media and website links.
2. Please do not assume that posts once published will be automatically shared on social media sites. Please share and tweet and post about them as well. Sometimes there are hitches and glitches.

Australian Female Authors/Publishers/Presses: 

1. If you wish to be interviewed, please contact us and we will put you on a list so that one of our reviewers will contact you.
2. The above applies if you have giveaways of your books to offer or review copies. Please email ebook/kindle/pdf review copies to guysreadgals@gmail.com . If you have hardcopy review copies
   please send us an email about the book and yourself and it will be assigned to a lucky reviewer. Their names and addresses will then be taken and sent on to you for delivery of said copies.
3. Publishers and presses are welcome to bombard the email inbox in the manner described above with said review copies of Australian female fiction authors’ titles.