Freelancer's Guidelines
The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society publishes five newspapers, including BC Raven's Eye the Aboriginal Newspaper of British Columbia. All publish news, sports, arts and entertainment, reviews and features about Aboriginal people.
We do accept stories on spec, but it's a better idea to e-mail the editors or call at 1-800-661-5469
[or (780) 455-2700 in the Edmonton area] and pitch the idea first.We are NOT interested in poetry or fiction.
Deadline, story focus and length will be set by the editor when the story is assigned. Most stories should be between 500 and 800 words.
All stories should be submitted with photographs and caption information-who, what where, why, when and how of the picture. AMMSA does accept stand-alone photos. Reimbursement for film and developing with the submission of original receipts should be negotiated before the assignment is accepted. All photographs should be shot in color. We prefer prints to be sent to us, or high resolution pics sent be e-mail. If you send an electronic file, it must be a minimum of 170 dpi at four inches by six inches.
Freelancer's cheques will be issued within 30 days following publication of the story. A freelancer can expect to be paid $3 per published inch for a single source story and $3.60 for a multi-source story. For a front page photo in Windspeaker, the rate is $100, and $50 for front page photos in Raven's Eye and any of our other provincial publications. Inside we pay $25 per photo used.
AMMSA pays only pre-approved expenses of writers on assignment. Original receipts are required.
If AMMSA assigns a story, that story is copyrighted as AMMSA property. It is not to be reproduced in any other publication without the consent of the AMMSA editor.
If a freelancer generates a story idea and that story is accepted for publication in an AMMSA paper, that story, in that form, becomes the property of AMMSA and may not be sold to any other publication without the consent of the AMMSA editor.
If a freelance writer wants to sell a story on the same event or subject to more than one publication and AMMSA has accepted the story for publication, the story to be sold elsewhere must be substantially different in form and may not be submitted to any publication defined by AMMSA as sharing the same market area as AMMSA unless approval from the editor is sought. If a story that has appeared in AMMSA is found in another publication, AMMSA will not pay the freelancer for that story.
The above does not apply to assigned stories. They are exclusively AMMSA property.AMMSA may use the story in any or all of the newspapers it publishes, and a writer will be compensated at half the rate for any use over the use of the story in the first publication.
For example: If your single source story appears in Windspeaker, you would receive $3 per published inch. If that story appears in Windspeaker, and is picked up by Alberta Sweetgrass, you will receive an additional $1.50 per published inch for the work. And on it goes for each of the AMMSA papers that pick up the story.AMMSA follows CP style, with a few idiosyncrasies. Read the paper to get an idea of what we expect.
N.B: All stories that are published in the paper version of our publications are also put online at www.ammsa.com and are sold to a library subscription service. If you object to having your material republished in this way, please let the editor know and we will remove your story from our files sent to our webmaster and to the subscription service.
Contacts:
Windspeaker, Alberta Sweetgrass and Raven's Eye for B.C.
E-mail Debora Steel at edwind@ammsa.comSaskatchewan Sage and Ontario Birchbark
E-mail Cheryl Petten at sage@ammsa.com
02 March 2005