Clean Run: Magazine Submissions

Submitting Articles

Clean Run welcomes the submission of educational and engaging feature articles covering the entire range of issues pertaining to the training of dogs for agility, competing in our sport, the conduct of training classes and agility events, and the health and safety of our agility dogs. Our best source of content is you—the people around the world who are out there running and training dogs in the sport of agility. Clean Run provides a forum in which you can share your experiences and expertise with over 11,000 agility enthusiasts of all ability levels worldwide. With your help, Clean Run continues to be a vital and informative publication.

Whether or not we are able to accept your article, we appreciate your interest in Clean Run and your initiative in submitting your work to us.

Not Sure If an Article is Right for Clean Run

Email an article proposal to editors@cleanrun.com. In the email summarize the focus of the article you want to write in three or four sentences. Briefly describe what agility enthusiasts will learn from your article and why it’s important. Also explain your background in the sport.

Submitting Manuscripts

By submitting an article to Clean Run you are acknowledging that the manuscript is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under consideration by any other publication or electronic medium.

Send manuscripts via e-mail as Microsoft Word attachments to editors@cleanrun.com. A manuscript will be considered only if it includes the author's first and last name, postal address, daytime telephone number, email address, and a brief (50 to 75 words) author biography. If there is more than one author, provide information for each contributor and designate one author to handle correspondence.

It is always beneficial to include photographs and/or illustrations with the submission. See "Photos and Illustrations" below for details.

Length

Articles typically run from 1,200 to 3,000 words.

Lead Time

We acknowledge receipt of submissions and article proposals when they are sent. Please be aware, however, that lead time for publication is 4 to 12 months. In general, content for the upcoming year is planned in August of each year. At that time we review all article proposals and article submissions and plan our publication schedule. We then contact authors to negotiate compensation and scheduling.

Document Formatting

Set the left and right margins to 1.25" and set the top and bottom margins to 1".
Use 12-point Times New Roman for the font.
Under the Format, Paragraph menu, set Alignment to "Left" and Spacing to "6 points After."
Use single spaces after periods and other punctuation.
Do NOT use paragraph indentations.
Do NOT use any other formatting than bold or italic.
Do NOT include hyperlinks in the document.
Do NOT embed photos or images.

Hints on Style

Clean Run tries to use an informal, easy-to-read style. Here are some specific suggestions about how to achieve that tone:

Write as if you're talking to the reader. Use active verbs indicating who is doing what. For example, say "do a rear cross" instead of saying "a rear cross should be done."
Avoid agility jargon or regional terms whenever possible, and explain technical terms that you do use.
Be specific and give examples for each important point you make.
Don't try to cover too much; keep your topic narrowly focused. Books might cover topics in great depth, but magazines have limited space, so articles need to focus on particular aspects of a topic.
Write from your experience. Our readers need to know you've "been there," so give practical advice based on your own experience.

Photos & Illustrations for the Article

Submission of original photographs and graphics to illustrate the article is encouraged. Please be aware, however, that Clean Run will not pay additional fees to the author for photographs or graphics unless special arrangements are made in advance.

Photographs and graphics need to be provided separately and not embedded in the Word file:

Course and sequence diagrams must be submitted as Clean Run Course Designer 3 files. Please be aware that agility courses and sequences are no different from photographs; they belong to the people who designed them. If you are using a course or sequence that was designed by someone else—whether a judge, an instructor, or a friend—please get permission from the original designer.
Photographs and other images can be submitted as JPEG, TIFF, or EPS files. Photos must be at least 1728 x 1152 pixels. Submit the original camera files only—no editing, cropping, resizing, sharpening, or watermarks. If there are things you don't like about the photo (for instance, if there are things in the background to be removed), just let us know and we'll take care of it. If you want text, arrows, lines, or other graphics added to a photo, please do not add them to the original image. Either add them to a copy of the image and supply the copy plus the original photo to us, or simply describe how you'd like the graphics added at the end of your manuscript. Photographs or artwork supplied by someone other than the manuscript author should be clearly identified for credit and a release from the copyright owner should be filled out and sent to Clean Run. If the art has been previously published or is based upon previously published material, written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce or adapt the art must be submitted.

All course diagrams, photographs, and graphics files should be named in a way that makes it easy for us to identify where the image should be used in the article (for example, Figure 1 or Fido Demonstrating Aframe). They should also be identified and captioned in the Word file at the end of the article; for example, "Figure 1 shows Fido exiting the tunnel on a right lead."

You can email images smaller than 4 megabytes to editors@cleanrun.com. Larger files can be uploaded to our FTP site (email us for the login information), sent via the free service YouSendIt.com, or mailed on a CD or DVD to our offices at Clean Run, 17 Industrial Dr., South Hadley, MA 01075. Multiple files can be grouped and compressed using either PKZip or StuffIt.

Editing

While the editors will attempt to preserve the author's voice whenever possible, all accepted manuscripts or letters to the editor will be edited for space and clarity according to the magazine's style and format. A copy of the article with photographs and artwork in position will be emailed to the author for review before publication.

Payment

Payment will be determined on a per-article basis based on the subject matter, photographs and illustrations provided, article length, and the experience of the contributor. General fees range from $75 to $300, and will be confirmed on acceptance of the article. Payment is made at the time of publication.

Copyright

Clean Run purchases articles on a first-rights basis, meaning that the author offers Clean Run the right to reproduce the article for the first time in a printed or electronic magazine or periodical. We also require exclusivity for 120 days from the date of publication. The author retains all other rights to his or her work, including the right to re-license use as a reprint ("second serial rights"), or publish it in a book after the 120-day period of exclusivity.

When we publish the article, it will appear in the printed magazine as well as in the digital edition of Clean Run.

Author Responsibilities

Authors are solely responsible for the content of articles submitted. The magazine accepts no responsibility for inaccuracies in manuscripts or references. It is the author's responsibility to notify the magazine of any potential conflict of interest with respect to submitted articles and to acknowledge affiliation with any organization or entity mentioned in the text and/or financial interest in any subject matter, organization, or product discussed.

When quoting any source (exhibitor, judge, or other) be sure to get permission to use the quote and double-check with the source to ensure that you have presented the quoted material accurately.

Submitting Photographs

Clean Run uses a variety of original photographic material to augment our magazine's content. We are always seeking dynamic and remarkable images of dogs engaged in the sport of agility. However, we have a much greater need for "non-traditional" shots of agility dogs, including images capturing handler and dog interaction in and out of the ring, unusual behavior, humorous moments, and activity and goings-on around the agility ring.

In most cases Clean Run photography is taken by proven professionals, although we will consider amateur photographs that meet our criteria.

We accept only high-resolution color digital images that are submitted by the copyright owner of the photograph. If you have purchased a photo from a professional photographer, you must ask the photographer to submit the photo to us unless he or she has given you a waiver saying that you can do whatever you please with the photo.

What Is Clean Run Looking for in a Photo?

Images should be in sharp focus, color should be accurate, exposure should be perfect or nearly so, and the subject should be large in the image frame. Images for editorial content must be at least 1728 x 1152 pixels (covers must be higher resolution as explained below). Here are some additional guidelines to help you select photos for submission:

We prefer photos taken at outdoor agility events to ones taken indoors.
There should be minimal background distractions. The dog should be the most important part of the shot and he should not have tent poles or ring posts sticking out of his head. There should not be porta-potties, trash cans, or similar items in the background.
If the dog is performing an obstacle, the obstacle should be attractive and in good condition; that means no peeling duct tape, no warping wood, no rusty jump bars, etc.
If you are submitting a photo of an Aussie, Border Collie, Corgi, JRT, or Sheltie, it must be the best photo that you have ever taken! Seriously, we receive so many submissions featuring these particular breeds that if the photo isn't outstanding, we cannot consider it for publication.
Yes, we like to get photographic submission of unusual breeds, but our normal standards should still be applied when evaluating the photographs. We won't publish a poorly composed photo just because it's a rare breed.
Then there's the intangible factor we look for—that special expression or emotion or intensity that communicates something about the sport. That factor is particularly important when we select photos for the cover. Try to evaluate the quality of each photo objectively—is there something really special about the photo?

If you want the photo to be considered for a cover, there are additional criteria that must be met:

The photo must be shot vertically (portrait, not landscape) and require only minimal cropping. We cannot crop and resize a horizontal photo to use as a cover image.
The dog should fill a large part of the frame, we should not have to significantly enlarge the image.
The dog should be well-lit, not too light and not too dark. We should be able to see features (like eyes) on a black dog and we should be able to see hair and detail on a white dog, not blank white areas of space.
The dog must be in tack-sharp focus; we should be able to see his whiskers, the flecks of color in his eyes, the pores in his nose, etc.
The photo must have been taken with a 10-megapixel camera and must be at least 2336 x 3504 pixels at 72 dpi without any software manipulation.

Submission Guidelines

When selecting images for submission, it's to your advantage to be extra selective. More isn't necessarily better. When we are looking for photographers to fill specific needs or to work with us on special projects, the photographers we contact are the ones who consistently send us only their best and most interesting work; not those who send us a large batch of unsorted images from a single trial.

We only accept photographs taken with a digital camera. Images should be created using the highest-quality JPEG setting (usually marked "fine" or "high") on your camera. Do not send photos that have been scanned in and converted to digital files on consumer scanners. These images do not reproduce well for publication.

Here are some additional submission guidelines:

Submit only original camera files.
Do NOT send more than 10 images at a time for consideration.
Do NOT crop or resize images.
Do NOT correct images for color, sharpness, size, or color mode.
Do NOT add watermarks to the image.

Sending Photos to Us

Do NOT email photographic submissions.
Do NOT submit more than 10 images at a time.
Send images via mail on a CD-ROM or DVD to Clean Run, 17 Industrial Dr., South Hadley, MA 01075.

Photo Release & Publishing Agreement

Click here to download a copy of our photo publishing agreement. Print a copy, sign it, and return it to us by mail. Photos will not be accepted for consideration without a copy of this agreement on file.