Submission Guidelines

• Submission guidelines: [Alternate Route] accepts poetry, short stories, flash fiction, verse, prose, photography, art, translations, spoken word, audio recordings (will not be published in semi-annual compilation), etc. We publish submissions to Patreon first, on a rolling basis (Patreon link can be found on homepage), to give our artists exposure. Please denote in your submission emaill if you would like your submission behind our monthly $6 paywall or open-access! 50% of Patreon financial support from the opening of the reading period to the compilation at the end of the reading period (more on that later) goes to funding the zine (web hosting, compensation for editor's time), and 50% goes to the writers/artists. Of this 50%, it is split EVENLY between writers/artists in the reading period (regardless of whether your work is behind the paywall or not). We will publish a paperback compilation of all Patreon-published poems/short fiction/art/translations/etc. on a semi-quota basis, but once about 20-30 creators have been published, on Lulu.com as usual. The payout for the reading period is when this annual/ semi-annual paperback version is published. We anticipate that the first issue on this new system will be about half a year to a year after the opening of the reading/review period. Expect little to no payment from the Patreon split at first (we are a small indie zine, so apologies for not, I don't know, whatever). To pay you these pennies, we will need your Paypal username, so include that in your submission if you wish to be included in this financiopoetic experiment.
• Reserved rights: So the main thing you should understand in plain English is that once you email (submit) your work to us, we reserve the right to publish it. That's about it. Your copy of your work (on your hard drive or wherever) is yours to do whatever you want with. This includes before we have published the copy you sent to us, but we reserve the right to publish the copy you sent to us (to Patreon and in the semi-quota paperback compilation). Occasionally we advocate for our artists/poets by nominating exceptional pieces for e.g. The Pushcart Prize, or once we nominated a good sci-fi for the Nebula Award. So there's that. SOMETIMES we make minor editorial changes to the piece (if a poem is running over the lines because your copy is on 8.5" x 11" while our zine is 5.5" x 8.5", we apologize but that is just how it is). In general, [AR] does not make content-bases edits to pieces submitted to us, even if there are like spelling mistakes or whatever. If an image is corrupt (e.g. you submitted art) we would naturally let you know, or simply not publish it. Having said that, if you wish to rescind your submission BEFORE we have published it to Patreon, let us know. We don't like taking down poets who are published on Patreon AFTER they are published, but if there are serious extenuating circumstances, feel free to "shoot" us an email and we'll see what we can do. The paperback compilation at the end of the semi-quota reading period is either copywritten or creative commons or something that protects the authors'/artists' rights, but also [AR]'s. Please don't plagiarize.
• Submission Email: Submission email is <editor [at] alternateroute [dot] org>.