CONTACT POINTS

Address material to the appropriate Editor and magazine to:
Key Publishing Ltd., PO Box 100, Stamford, Lincs, UK, PE9 1XQ
Tel: 01780 75513 (overseas - +44 (0)1780 755131)
Fax: 01780 757261 (overseas +44 (0)1780 757261)
Email: refer to individual magazines or generically to info@keypublishing.com
Web: www.keypublishing.com

CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE

The Editors are always happy to receive contributions. Please note that all material sent to an Editor is forwarded at the contributor's own risk. While every care is taken with material, neither the Editors nor the Publisher can be held responsible for any loss or damage incurred. All material submitted (especially photographs and slides) must have the contributor's name and address clearly marked upon it, and a stamped addressed envelope (or the equivalent in International Reply Coupons) envelope should be enclosed.

In the case of both unsolicited and commissioned work, the contribution can only be deemed as being accepted on receipt of a letter of confirmation from the Editor – this will be a communication other than an acknowledgement of receipt.

Please note that Key Publishing Ltd cannot accept any liability for damage/loss of equipment/belongings, personal injury/loss of life incurred, or Third Party claims, whilst undertaking either unsolicited or commissioned work for any of its titles.

Applications for press facilities at events can only be made after consultation with an Editor and in that case invariably arrangements will be made by Key Publishing Ltd on behalf of a writer/contributor.

The Editors reserve the right to cut copy (reduce the length of an article) if they deem it necessary.

Contributors must adhere to the magazine ‘style sheet’ – failure to do so may result in extra Editorial work and those costs incurred may be deducted from payment.

Key Publishing Ltd’s titles are published in the UK but distributed worldwide – an article will therefore appear in all those countries in which the magazine is sold. By submitting an article to Key Publishing Ltd you are granting to Key Publishing Ltd an exclusive irrevocable license to publish the article in any of Key Publishing Ltd’s titles anywhere in the world and for any purpose associated with the publication of the titles anywhere in the world.

The rights granted in the above paragraph include, but are not limited to, the right for Key Publishing Ltd to license articles, or any parts of articles that appear in its magazines to other journals around the world. Such licensing may include making or procuring a translation by a third party of the article into a foreign language. The rights granted in the above paragraph also include, but are not limited to, the right for Key Publishing Ltd to publish any articles published in its magazines on its websites.

PAYMENT

Text : Payment for articles is made at the rate of £50 per 1,000 words used in the magazine unless alternative rates have been negotiated with Editors. This is based upon word-count published, not word-count submitted. No payments are made for captions.

For the avoidance of doubt, payment made according to the paragraph above is made following the first publication of the article in one of Key Publishing Ltd’s titles anywhere in the world or on its website. No further payment will be made for subsequent reprints of the articles in any media or format (either by Key Publishing Ltd in its titles or on its websites or by third parties licensed by Key Publishing Ltd).

Please note that an Editor may think that an article, or part thereof, may be more suited to another magazine in the Key Publishing group. If you have any objections to this, they must be stated when submitting material.

Overseas contributors should note that due to the high cost of providing foreign currency drafts and Euro cheques, individual payments amounting to less than £40 are not possible. In most cases, these will be held until such time as the contributor has accumulated a total in excess this figure. Should a contributor prefer, an existing balance can be used towards purchasing products or services from Key Publishing Ltd - ie copies of magazines, or mail order items. This can only be done by arrangement with the Editor in question.

Illustrations

Payment for black and white photographs is made at the rate of £10 each for those printed in the magazine irrespective of size used.

Payment for colour photographs is at the following rates: Front cover – sole photograph £120; other images, ‘dropped in’ on the cover will be paid at the Editor’s discretion. Inside pages – sole photograph, whole page bleed, £75. Other photographs are paid at £20 each, up to a maximum of £80 per page (regardless of the number of images used on that page).

The above is a general guide and contributors should note that individual magazines may have variations to this structure; for example AFM pays £10 for any photos used in the Attrition section. Illustrations published in the ‘letters’ pages of our magazines are not generally paid for. Likewise, illustrations re-used on the contents page do not warrant an additional fee.

Should an Editor decide to use either colour transparencies or colour prints for reproduction in black and white, payment will be made at the black and white rate.

In the case of rare photographs and/or where the negative is not available to the sender, we will waive our usual requirement for halfplate or postcard photographs. If it is necessary to print or reprint photographs from negatives or transparencies, the cost of this work will be deducted from the contributor's payment.

Where a photograph is submitted that has originated from another source (eg museum archive, private archive) it is the contributor's responsibility to gain permission to publish, and any fees payable from such publication will be settled by the contributor from his/her payment, unless otherwise arranged with the Editor.

The Editor reserves the right to substitute illustrations from other sources to be used with submitted articles.

SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Computer file formats: Key Publishing Ltd uses Apple Mac and IBM compatible computers and Microsoft Word software. PC users must save their articles in a Word-compatible format, as plain text or in Rich Text Format. If other applications are used, contributors are asked to state clearly what files have been sent and what software has been used.

Work can be submitted on a 3.5 inch floppy disk, 100Mb zip disk, CD-ROM, DVD or as an email attachment. If you send your file as an email attachment please state the generating software and file type clearly in your message. Editors may also insist that a print-out of the text is supplied to accompany an emailed submission, because text formatting and accents can be lost when converting to a Word document.

Please do not mix text and illustrations in the same file - keep them separate. We also require that specification tables, etc, are simply tabulated into columns and not formulated into panels or boxes.

Disks must be accompanied by a double-spaced, best-quality print-out, using one side of the paper only. Elements of text can sometimes corrupt when their original formats are converted to Microsoft Word – we may need to cross-reference the original document or, if the disk proves unreadable, scan in the entire text.

We appreciate that not all contributors have access to a PC, in those cases clearly printed manuscripts (using a typewriter or word processor) are required and must be supplied on white A4 paper. Please use only one side of the paper. Each page should be numbered and lines should be double-spaced with at least a one inch (2.5cm) border all around the text. Manuscripts that do not adhere to this format may have to be retyped and Editors will deduct the costs incurred from the contributor’s fee.

A separate sheet with captions for photographs, etc, must also be included. Photo captions should give a clear credit for the origin of the shot. Illustrations should be numbered or otherwise identified, so that they can be matched to the captions.

We do not accept photocopied manuscripts, only originals.

Hand-written manuscripts will not normally be accepted as these have to be typed up by Editorial staff and a charge for this service will be deducted from the contributor's payment.

Manuscripts, once used, will not normally be returned to contributors.

Colour transparencies either 35mm or 2.5in square, are normally required, or colour prints can be utilised depending on quality.

Electronic images: Contributors are urged to contact us before sending, particularly if sending large files via the Internet. We have an FTP server – details of use will be supplied via the Editor concerned. As a rough guide, we are looking for jpegs or tiffs of at least 300 dpi to a width of 21cms (or 1600 pixels), as this will enable images to be used across the full width of the page if necessary. Please note that all electronic images should be clearly linked to their caption sheets with consistent numbering, etc. A ‘thumbnail’ print-out of images can help considerably and some Editors may insist on this. With major features that are not time-critical, the preferred method of submitting a large number of images is via a CD.

Please note that we do not accept glass mounts because they could damage transparencies if they break.

Editors are always happy to discuss any of the above with contributors should they care to contact the office.

Style requirements for contributors

It is important that contributors make themselves aware of the particular Editorial style of the magazine they are submitting an article to. The following are the main elements of Key Publishing Ltd’s house style and we ask contributors to adopt the following:

Dates: Our required style is March 24, 2006 (never the 24th of March or March 24th).

Conversions: Authors are asked to calculate their own Imperial/Metric conversions and they should state Imperial figures first, followed by the Metric conversion in brackets.

Numbers: In narrative, numbers are written out – one to eleven – then quoted in digits from 12 onwards. However, digits must be used when referring to measurements or specifications, eg the airfield was 6 miles (10km) away… the flight lasted 3hrs 22mins.

Abbreviations: these should always be preceded by a definition and written thus - Beyond Visual Range (BVR). After the first mention, BVR is sufficient. Please note: we do not use a full stop in abbreviations (ie RAF not R.A.F / Lt not Lt.) In a similar vein, the first mention of an aircraft type should include its manufacturer, eg Lockheed Martin F-16; subsequent references can be F-16 or Fighting Falcon.

Double quote marks: These should only be used to illustrate direct speech.

Please do not use italics or underlining.

And finally, any tables/lists should be supplied in a tabulated format, with a single tab between each column, and not enclosed in borders or frames.

Key Publishing Ltd reserves the right to update these guidelines from time to time with no prior consultation nor notification given. Copies are freely available directly from Key Publishing Ltd or downloadable from www.keypublishing.com. The guidelines which are current on the date of publication will be the binding version.

Last updated: October 10, 2006

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