Executive Council of Home Owners (ECHO) Publications Editorial Direction and Guidelines for Submissions February 20, 2019
Articles are to be fresh and unpublished by other associations or organizations. ECHO reserves editing rights for all submissions. Authors will be advised of significant edits to the articles as determined by ECHO staff. ECHO will make every reasonable effort to coordinate with the author on edits made. The production of the article is a joint production process between the author, production contractors and ECHO staff. The author is responsible for the content of the article. Content accuracy, veracity and representations are those solely of the author. Article headlines are the exclusive responsibility of the editor. This is to insure a consistent theme in the publication and appropriate title lengths that fit production needs. ECHO reserves the right to not publish an article in any of its publications at its discretion even though there may have been a prior agreement to do so. Articles must be submitted on time; be of appropriate length, style and quality; include information requested information about the author and fit within the publication. Failure to provide any of these could result in the article not being published. Plagiarism, as determined solely by ECHO staff, will not be tolerated at any time and will result in the plagiarized material being rejected from an ECHO publication. The author may be removed from future opportunities to publish or speak at ECHO events or in ECHO publications. Repeat or blatant offenses similarly could result in a permanent barring of the author from providing content ECHO. Articles submitted to ECHO may be repurposed for the benefit of ECHO and used in other media, such as social media posts, and abstracted for the ECHO Insight e-newsletter or conversely expanded for the ECHO Journal. Although tempting, we seek not to re-publish articles. Likewise, ECHO will not accept articles written and published (or that will be published) by another organization or association. We expect authors to respect this policy. Occasionally, ECHO will re-publish an article with important, recurring and unchanged information for boards and/or homeowners. We ask that the content and approach of the article be updated and refreshed to the extent possible. For unedited articles ECHO will note that the article has been republished. We also can refer readers to the old version of the article in our repository of back issues on the ECHO Website and other locations. It is the intent of ECHO to provide an opportunity for members to contribute to the body of knowledge created and administered by ECHO. To this extend, we welcome all members to participate in providing ECHO with content for any of our publications or for our many speaking and teaching opportunities. However, ECHO always reserves the right to accept or reject submissions or content development requests. Submission of content to ECHO represents your acceptance of these terms, conditions and guidelines. We hope these guidelines, terms and conditions will help you in the submission of articles and other content to ECHO, especially for the following publications: ECHO CONTENT/ARTICLES GUIDELINES Page | 1
ECHO JOURNAL ARTICLE SUBMISSION: We produce 6 bi-monthly ECHO Journals per year. The article submission deadline is the 15th of the month prior to the first day of the first month of the Journal issue. For example, the submission deadline for the January-February issue is December 15th. We encourage early submissions to help us with editing, placement and artwork. We also accept articles not scheduled for a specific Journal issue. This provides ECHO and the author added flexibility and no deadline requirements. SUBMISSION TYPES: 1. Specific issue: This is the most common type of submission, usually at the request of the chief editor given a specific Journal theme, importance or timeliness of the topic. For example, an author may be requested to compose an article for the September-October Journal on budgets. The deadline for submission is August 15th. If an author commits to write an article, the space in the Journal will be reserved for the article. If the deadline for submission is not met, then we may need to replace the space reserved with another article. Unfortunately, print publication timelines are unforgiving. Failure to deliver on time creates a snowball effect in production and delivery schedules. 2. Undetermined issue: An author may have an idea or article they would like published at some undetermined time in the future but not necessarily for a specific issue of the Journal. ECHO will accept these articles and place them in an unpublished articles folder. These articles may be used when authors fail to submit on time, it is determined to use the article in a specific future issue (reserve space) or to rework and use the article for other publications such as the ECHO Insight or on social media postings. • • • • • • • • •
Issue release dates: January-February, March-April, May-June, July-August, September-October and November-December. Target audience: Board members; Secondary audience: Community residents Distribution: Approximately 7,000 Articles per issue: 4 to 5 plus features and regular stories Words per submission: 600-1,200 Article types and style: Board education, industry best practices, practical legal, application of law, human interest, “how-to”, stories with a point Submission deadline: The 15th of the month prior to the first month of the issue Release date: Mailing the 15th of the first month of the issue. For example: the JanuaryFebruary issue would be mailed January 15th. Format: editable Word documents, no headers or footers please. Provide art, photos, tables, graphics as appropriate.
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ECHO Insight e-NEWSLETTER SUBMISSION: The "ECHO Insight" e-Newsletter is a new publication of ECHO. It will be delivered bi-monthly alternating with the release date (mailing) of the ECHO Journal. For example, when the JanuaryFebruary Journal issue is released on January 15, the ECHO Insight will be sent out in February 15th. When the Journal is then released on March 15th, the ECHO Insight will be released in April 15th, etc. We hope to have an inventory of articles saved for this publication which will include one or two articles. • • • • • •
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Issue release dates: 15th of February, April, June, August, October and December. Target audience: Community homeowners; Secondary audience: Board members Distribution: Up to 8,000; will be growing Articles per issue: 1 or 2 Words per submission: 200 to 600 words (no more than one page of writing) Article types and style: Short, pithy, simple. One or two points. Community education, stories with a point, political/legislative information, how-to and best management practices, checklists and tools. Submission deadline: Ongoing depending on timeliness of topics and agreement. Not later than the first day of the month of publication, i.e., January 1st for the January release. Format: editable Word documents, no headers or footers please. Provide art, photos, tables, graphics as appropriate.
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