FAQ

How much does HeyPublisher cost?

$Free.99. Zero dollars. Zilch. Nada.

The basic version of HeyPublisher is free to use for both writer and publisher alike. Our basic submission manager plugin is, and will always remain, free to operate.

However, if you are a publisher operating a non-WordPress publication and would like to run HeyPublisher, our development team can configure a version of the plugin for a small licensing fee. Contact info@heypublisher.com for more details.

How do I create an account?

First, make sure you have enabled cookies on your web browser (for more info on cookies, see I created an account, but can’t access it. Help! below). Then create an account using a valid email address (this will be your username to login) and a password you’ll remember. After you have created your account, you can change your account info at any time by clicking on the My Account link on the upper right-hand corner of the page.

How do I upload a work to my account?

It’s easy! To upload a work to your HeyPublisher profile, go to the My Writing tab and click “+ add new work.” Then give your work a title (i.e., “Quad-shot Soy Lattes and Margaret”) and a short description (i.e., “An essay on my relationship with my local barista”), select the type of work from the drop-down categories list (i.e., “Creative Nonfiction”), and upload the work from your computer by clicking “browse.” Locate the file on your computer, and click “Create Work” to upload it to your profile. The work will then appear in My Writing, and can be submitted for publication directly from the My Writing page, or from the page of the publisher to whom you’d like to submit it.

How do I submit a work to a publisher?

This one’s easy, too! If you know the publisher to whom you’d like to submit a work, you can submit directly from the My Writing page by clicking “submit this work” and following the on-screen prompts.

If you don’t know to which publisher you’d like to submit, first browse through the publisher database. You can filter your search by category or submission type, or search by keyword. Once you’ve found a publisher, you can submit to them by simply clicking on the “submit to publisher” button and following the on-screen prompts.

How will I know if my work has been submitted?

Once you have submitted a work to a publisher, it should appear in My Submissions, under the Submissions tab. You can view the details of each submission, including the date of submission and publisher submitted to, and can mark a submission as published or rejected, or withdraw a submission from a publisher altogether.

What do I do if my work has been rejected?

Keep your chin up! Even the Joyces and Hemingways of this world were rejected umpteen times before they were published. Perseverance is the most important trait we writers must cultivate. If your work has been rejected by a publisher, you have several options within HeyPublisher.
1.     Revise it. While we currently suggest writers don’t delete works (see Why can’t I delete an uploaded work from My Writing? below), you can revise a work as many times as you need and upload the new version to HeyPublisher. Simply go to Submissions, find the work you wish to update, and follow the on-screen prompts to upload your revised version.
2.     Resubmit it. Search through the HeyPublisher database and find another publisher to submit to.
3.     Request a workshop. If your work has been rejected by a publisher, you can request to have it workshopped by other writers whose work was accepted by that publisher.

Why can’t I delete an uploaded work from My Writing?

While we used to allow writers to delete works from their HeyPublisher profile, the HeyPublisher team has now disabled this functionality for several reasons:

1.     It’s a headache for publishers. In the old days, writers would occasionally delete a work they had submitted to a publisher—a work that was being considered for publication unbeknownst to them—with the intention of uploading an updated version of the work to their account. We received many a frustrated email from publishers who accepted a work, only to find it suddenly deleted. If you wish to update a work you have already uploaded to your HeyPublisher profile, you can do this via the website. Simply go to the Submissions section, find the work you wish to update, and follow the on-screen prompts. No more angry publishers!
2.     It’s a missed opportunity for publication. We had some writers who, if a work was rejected by a publisher, would simply delete that work from their account. But why not take advantage of our vast publisher database, and find a new publisher to submit the work to? Perseverance is the name of the game in getting published, and what is one publisher’s “trash” may very well be another’s “treasure.” We want to see you get published, so don’t delete your work—resubmit it!
3.     Works on our servers are 100% guaranteed not to be lost. Our most recent writer survey revealed that over 50% of writers have lost a manuscript due to hard-drive failure, and 80% do not backup their hard-drives regularly. But if you upload a work to HeyPublisher, it is guaranteed not to be lost because we store it on our Amazon S3 servers. Many writers use HeyPublisher as a free way to keep backups of their work in the event of hard-drive failure. Because hey, you never know when you’ll spill that latte on your laptop and lose the first draft of your novel.

Now that we’ve said all that, we realize that there are some cases where you simply want to remove your work and move on. We respect that.

If you need a work permanently removed from HeyPublisher, please send an email to support@heypublisher.com. The email should be sent from the email address associated with your HeyPublisher account and should include the title of the work(s) to be deleted. Please keep in mind that all deletions are permanent and works cannot be recovered once deleted.

I created an account, but can’t access it. Help!

If you created a HeyPublisher account for yourself, but can’t seem to access it now, you can troubleshoot the problem here.
1.     Check your password. If you believe you are entering the correct password and think you may have entered your original password in error, you can reset it at: http://heypublisher.com/passwords/new.
2.     Check your cookies. Third-party cookies are stored on your computer by websites you visit and contain information such as site preferences or stored logins. If you have not enabled cookies in your browser, it will not keep you logged into HeyPublisher during the submission process. For instructions on enabling cookies in your browser, see the following links:
a.     Firefox: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/enabling%20and%20disabling%20cookies
b.     Safari: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=safari/3.0/en/9277.html
c.     Internet Explorer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196955

If you have additional questions, or need your account deleted altogether, please contact us at: support@heypublisher.com.

Drew London

Why does it take so long to know if my work has been accepted or rejected? I submitted several pieces back in January and all of them are still listed only as “submitted”.

Anonymous

This is a great question! The time it takes for an editor to review a submission varies from publication to publication. Most (though not all) publishers will tell you in their submission guidelines how much time it takes for them, on average, to respond.

If it has been longer than the publisher’s stated response time, you can ‘withdraw’ your submission via HeyPublisher. Simply go to the submission details screen and click on the withdraw button.

If the publisher does not have a published response time, we recommend contacting the editor directly (you can also do this via the submission details screen) and asking for an update.

By all means, though, don’t give up. Keep sending your work out!

http://twitter.com/teknerve TekNerve!

There seems to be no way to track submissions to publishers not in your database or even mark a work as ‘in submissions elsewhere’. As a result this becomes yet another place to track the same information instead of a single place to keep submissions.

Anonymous

Tek – yes, you can track submissions to any publisher you want through HeyPublisher (though admittedly, we need to a better job of explaining *how*)

I’ve posted an explanation of how to track any submission to any publisher in HeyPublisher at http://getsatisfaction.com/hey/topics/how_do_i_track_a_submission_to_a_publisher_not_already_in_your_database

Let us know if you have any other questions.

http://www.facebook.com/liquidmorpheme Ciro Faienza

I submitted a work before I’d added any information to my profile. I added this info immediately afterwards, but will it get to the publisher even after I’ve pressed “Submit?”

Anonymous

Yes – your information is provided to the publisher as you update it on the website. If you forgot to add something, want to update your bio, etc. – no problem. Simply make the change when you want and the publisher will see the latest information you have provided.

Aag Neron

I’m sure this information is here somewhere, but it isn’t popping up as readily as I’d like: Is there any format (Word, etc.) restriction for uploads? How do publishers receive the MS — is it reformatted or as I wrote it?

Anonymous

Aag – answers have been posted to our community support page:

Submission Formatting
Supported Document Formats

http://KristenMarble.com Kristen Marble

How do I add a photo to my bio? I have several works published on Burnside but just have a generic outline of a head instead of a photo. Also, is it possible to use html in the bio so links are active? Thanks!