Contributors' Guidelines

Thank you for working with The Herb Companion. Some background information:
The Herb Companion, published by Ogden Publications, Inc., is a bimonthly magazine devoted to the interests of vocational herb gardeners, cooks, crafters, natural health enthusiasts and herb aficionados. In each issue we encourage and inform both novice and more experienced enthusiasts. A typical issue will include practical horticultural information, original recipes illustrating the use of herbs, thoroughly researched historical insights, step-by-step directions for herbal craft projects, profiles of notable individuals in the field, natural health how-to, recent research findings, helpful hints and occasional book reviews. As you know, articles should display in-depth knowledge of the subject matter based on experience and thorough research.

Manuscript Preparation Principles; Don’t forget …

Scientific Names: Technical accuracy is essential. Please use scientific as well as popular names for plants and cover the subject in depth while avoiding overly academic presentation. Information should be made accessible to the reader, and we find this is best accomplished by writing from direct personal experience where possible and always in an informal style. Strive for conciseness and clear organization. Include subheads where appropriate and present lists of similar information in chart form. (If you are e-mailing your chart, please do so in a Word document rather than in an Excel chart.)

Research: Please keep your research materials and notes for future reference. As you may know, wikipedia.com is a wonderful tool. However, do not cite Wikipedia as a reference. It’s a great starting place, but do follow the footnotes and research back to the most reliable source.

Recipes: If your article includes recipes of any sort, list all ingredients and the expected yield, then give step-by-step instructions. A brief description of the recipe may precede the ingredients list. For a craft project, list all necessary materials and equipment, then give clear instructions and illustrate them with drawings or photos. (These illustrations are for editing purposes and will not necessarily be published as part of the article.)

Here is an example of our recipe format (please double-space):

Title of Recipe
Serves x
Description of special techniques or favorite aspects of recipe.
xy cups bread
xy ounces milk
xy teaspoons salt
1. Step 1 in recipe.
2. Step 2 in recipe.

Submitting: The date your article is due is on your contract, as well as word count expected.
Send your article to: editor@herbcompanion.com
Work should be double-spaced, in a standard serif black font (e.g., Times New Roman, 12 point). We prefer manuscripts to be submitted via e-mail in Microsoft Word, as attachments.
Our style is based on AP style; that is a good starting point. You may request our style guide, if you have questions.

Visuals
When possible, please accompany articles with diagrams and/or photos. We prefer digital images attached to email, a CD or uploads to the FTP site. [If you must send hard materials, please include your return address on all materials, including slides and photos. As we cannot guarantee return of items submitted, please retain a copy of all photo or illustration materials you send.]

To maintain consistent quality, we provide final illustrations and photographs to illustrate stories whenever possible. However, some visuals (such as photographs of a home garden or a rare wild plant) can only be provided by the author. If you provide your own visual material, please send samples of finished publication-quality photographs (300 DPI digital images) or artwork; we will work together to determine what will best suit the material and our design requirements. Digital images must have been shot at a high resolution (at least 300 DPI).