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Preview Procedure

Congratulations, you have finally received the Preview notice, which constitutes your “page proof.” Now what?

1. Our official motto is: “Proofreading never ends.” BwS likes to dress up nicely and put on a good appearance. Please double-check spelling, punctuation and grammar. After proofreading the text, send corrections, if any, to the Managing Editor. Please don’t send changes to anyone else. They may be lost, and we wouldn’t want that to happen!

   Proofreading:

   1. Only line edits can be considered at this stage. Simply copy-paste the original sentence — or some sufficient context — and, below it, rewrite it appropriately. Please do not use any other method; it will be confusing and hard to read. Please do not resend the entire file; we can’t work with it.

   2. BwS normally refers to multiple pages as “parts” of a work. If there is more than one part, please identify each set of changes by its part number: “part 1,” “part 2,” etc.

   3. Please do not cite paragraph or line numbers; they are worse than useless. Paragraphs may be hard to keep track of, and different window sizes may prevent any two viewers from seeing the same line numbers even if they’re using the same application on the same computer platform.

2. Bio page: Please also check the link to your bio, in the copyright line on each page. If your bio page has external links, you will want to verify them, as well.

   BwS bibliography: The titles of new contributors’ works are entered on their bio pages as a matter of course. For veteran contributors, we’re switching to a new format. If you are a veteran contributor and know that some titles are missing from the bibliography on your bio page, drop us a line. Citing titles and issue numbers will save time but, if you don’t remember them, you can consult the Titles, Authors, Genres Index.

3. The Challenge is the most fun of all. It’s in preparation during the week and is normally complete by Sunday night. Authors and readers alike are encouraged to send responses to any of the questions or to propose questions of their own. Discussions may be posted in a subsequent issue. As always, the discussions may continue. And you’re not limited to the latest issue; discussions of anything in any previous issues are also welcome.

4. On Monday, when the issue officially goes on line, save the page(s) or copy-paste the text into a word-processor document for your future reference. Our Review Editors regularly find errors that have escaped both our authors and the Managing Editor; corrections are made routinely. It’s a good idea to keep a record of the final version.

   At the same time, you may want to post the link to your title on social media and in e-mail. Such promotion is good for you and for Bewildering Stories, too! As we always say, “If you don’t do it, who will?”

5. Further opportunities: Many of our contributors have prior publications. We may be able to consider them. For complete information, please see Excerpts, which are the next best thing to a review, as well as Prior Publication; we may deem titles “hard to find.”

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