Contribute to Australian Birdlife magazine

Published by BirdLife Australia since 2012, Australian Birdlife is the nation’s premier bird conservation magazine. We tell the stories of Australia’s amazing birdlife, the threats our birds face and the passionate people who care about them.

A significant proportion of our articles and photographs are submitted by freelance contributors, and we would love to receive your submissions. Please read the following guide before getting in touch.

Pitch us your idea before submitting a completed article

Before you submit a finished article, please pitch your idea to our Editor, who will be able to let you know of its suitability for the magazine.

Only once you have pitched your idea can we advise on word length, style and the suitability of your piece for publication.

A good pitch comprises:

• A brief overview of the piece
• What the angle is
• How it will appeal to our readership

Please also send us:

• Your relevant writing experience and examples of your work
• If applicable, previews of publishable photographs

Familiarise yourself with Australian Birdlife magazine before sending anything

Before submitting, please familiarise yourself with our tone, audience, approach and the kind of articles we include. About 70 percent of our articles are written by freelance contributors.

We do our best to respond to queries within 3–4 weeks. Pitches that make it to our ‘maybe’ pile can sometimes take longer.

Follow our submission guidelines

Articles

Submit unformatted text in a Word document and include the headline in caps, subhead in italics, any subheads in bold, left-aligned, single-spaced. No photos or graphs embedded in the document.

Tips on style

Bear in mind that Australian Birdlife is a magazine and not a scientific journal. Contributors should keep in mind that they are writing for a broad and eclectic magazine readership, which means:

• When explaining complex ideas or theories, use accessible language.
• All articles must have one main focus. Don’t try to throw in as much detail about the bird or issue as you know.
• Only three references—any more will be cut by the editor.
• Only three authors will be credited—any more will be cut by the editor.
• Adhere to the word limit established in your agreement with the editor.

All bird names follow the BirdLife Australia Working List unless specific reasons are given within the text itself for the use of another name. For overseas birds, we prefer to follow the BirdLife International taxonomic list which can be found at www.birdlife.org/datazone

If any other nomenclature or taxonomy is followed, that will need to be explicitly stated in the article.

Word length

The editor will establish the appropriate length of the piece based on your pitch. Keep in mind that due to space restrictions, feature articles are rarely more than 2,500 words; any submissions longer than this will be edited. A one-page piece can be as little as 600 words—we are after quality, not quantity.

What we publish

• Conservation issues and projects
• Profiles on rare and interesting species
• Where to see birds—note that Australian Birdlife focuses primarily on wild birds of the Australian region. Keep in mind that there is less space for overseas-based articles
• Interesting, insightful pieces about the birdwatching experience.
• Book reviews
• News pieces
• Letters

What we don’t publish

• At this time we are not accepting poetry or fiction submissions.
• Unfinished work and poor-quality writing. While every effort will be made to consult with authors over changes, should an article not adhere to our house style and approach, the editor reserves the right to edit or reject material after submission.

Photography

Our point of difference is the high quality of nature photography that we publish every quarter. While we make good use of our in-house talent and stable of professional photographers, pitches with high-quality photographs are more likely to be published.

While a low-res image may be emailed with your pitch, upon acceptance we require high-res images to be sent via email or disk. Please consider sending files of 10MB and above via a file sharing service such as Dropbox.

All submitted photographs must be 300 DPI (dots per inch), the minimum resolution required for print. JPGs must be at least 650 KB or over and TIFs must be 36MB or over. Cover photographs and full-page images require higher resolution.

Maps and graphs

Email any supporting graphs, maps and tables as separate documents. We only accept Illustrator (CS4 and above), Excel or high-resolution JPGs. We DO NOT accept images embedded in Word or PowerPoint presentations.

Rights and Payment

As a not-for-profit organisation, we are not currently in a position to pay written contributions to Australian Birdlife, and thus we recognise that there should be no restriction on the re-use of text or photographs in other outlets or forums.

For photographic submissions, payment varies and is finalised after Australian Birdlife is published. In general, we pay between $50 for a small image and up to $300 for a cover image. The editor makes no guarantee that submitted photos will be used, and only published photographs will be paid for. After publication, the editor will request an invoice.

All material submitted to Australian Birdlife (both text and photos) should be original work and not currently pitched to any other magazine, newsletter or media outlet. If something has been previously published, please make the editor aware so it can be suitably attributed.

Owing to restrictions of space and time, we can make no guarantee as to the date of publication.

Contact

To contact the Australian Birdlife Editor, please submit an enquiry on our Contact us page.