In the body of the message, what we want is as follows:
1. Your name. (Your real name. The story can have a different byline, and we’ll credit that byline in public, but we need to know who’s legally offering us this story and to whom the check should be written.)
2. Your mailing address. (We need this for contract purposes; it will be kept confidential.)
3. A cover statement briefly giving us your publication credits, and in particular telling us whether this story has been published before or adapted into audio. If there’s anything we need to know about available rights, tell us that too. This section is optional, but it’s helpful for us to have this information if we buy your story and want to know more about you for bio purposes. (Note: When we say “briefly,” we mean your top five or six publications. We have literally had people send us resumés that were longer than the story submitted. This only makes us sigh.)
4. The word count of the story, according to your word processing software.
5. The title of the story.
6. The story’s byline. (Optional if it’s the same as your legal name.)
7. The text of the story. Use single spacing, with blank lines between paragraphs and _underscores_ for emphasis.