Submitting Magazine Articles

While many of our writers’ guidelines apply to both the blog and the print magazine, there are several things you should know when writing specifically for the magazine.

Story Assignments — Phone Life magazine is a bimonthly publication. We begin planning issues roughly three months prior to when we print the magazine. You can pitch stories to us at any time, and we'll also assign stories to writers from our pool of contributors when planning an issue.

Compensation — We pay $50 per article, and we issue payment within two weeks of when the issue in which the piece is included goes to print. In the event that an article doesn't fulfill the assignment and the author is unable or unwilling to make the necessary revisions, we reserve the right to withhold payment. 

Word Count — Our stories range in length from about 600-1,800 words. If our editors like the story you pitched, they will contact you to discuss the appropriate word count and due date for the given topic. Please note that we cannot guarantee publication of any article or the specific issue in which it will be published.

Due Dates — The average time we give writers to submit a draft is two weeks.

Bio — Please include a brief bio (45-60 words), and a clear headshot of yourself in the highest resolution available (300 ppi ideally). You may list sites or companies that you are affiliated with in your bio.

Material Ownership — You retain ownership of the work you submit to us before we edit it for publication. iPhone Life magazine retains copyright of the edited version of the article in the magazine, online, or in any way it sees fit. If the author wishes to use the edited version of the article, contact our editor in chief, Donna Cleveland (donna@iphonelife.com). Normally, we are quite liberal in allowing the reuse of articles given you provide proper attribution.

Images and Graphics — Please provide graphics whenever possible to accompany your story. The images should be attached (not embedded) in .jpg, .tif, or .png format.

Captions — We ask that you write a caption for any image you submit. Captions are generally one sentence long and can include information from the body of the story. Enclose captions with angle brackets, and reference the file name of the image before the caption. If you have suggestions for placement, please include them in angle brackets as well.

Example:

<Evernote.jpg>

<Caption: Evernote lets you collect, organize, and access info on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.>

Web References — At first mention of a product, include the name of the product, the name of the vendor followed by the URL and price in parentheses.

Example:

“SugarSync (free, sugarsync.com) is an excellent way to access files stored on either your home computer or the Web.”

Formatting — Please submit all articles using Microsoft Word. Your stories should have a title, and can also include a subtitle, subheadings, second-level subheadings, lists, and tables. If you decide to use a table in your article, we recommend submitting it using a spreadsheet program such as Excel and indicating where in the story we should insert it.