Why Are You Sending Me This?

After asking for articles relating to a website for which I am the newsletter editor, I received a flood of submissions all right. Unfortunately, they weren't exactly what I was looking for.

One gentleman told me he was working on an article about the changing political and governmental structure of his home country. He would send it to me when he was done. Another woman sent me an article on a marketing technique. There was no introduction, no contact information, and it was in no way related to the service I write about. When I asked why she was sending it, she simply replied, "Aren't you looking for articles?" Neither of these was related to the topic at hand and won't help me satisfy the 40,000 finicky readers I speak to each week.

There are five main reason I rejected 27 various article submissions I received so far this month.

- has nothing to do with the topic

- didn't follow formatting or length rules

- doesn't include proper contact information

- errors, errors, errors, errors, errors

- has nothing to do with the topic

Seeing a theme here? The problem is, I never know exactly how to ask people, "Why are you sending me this?" in a way that won't offend them. The other problem is that it's only my snippety nature that wants to ask them why they're sending it. To me it's obvious that it isn't what I want. It isn't obvious why after asking them to read my guidelines for submission they still thought it appropriate to send it.

Whenever you submit an article, be prepared to answer, "Why are you sending this to me?" If an editor asks and you can't give a good answer, rethink sending it off in the first place.