Tip #5 from How to Increase Your Chances of Publication

Be it an email or a manuscript, don’t settle for anything less than the best you can do. Always run your work through spelling and grammar checks. Also, it won’t hurt if you learn the proper formatting and if you consult some style guides.

Yes, your work may not always be “squeaky clean” and perfectly typo-error-free - but at best, you know you gave it your all. No matter how others may respond to your work, you always end up a winner this way.

When I was working on my About.com site, I know I was doing it all on spec at first. I also knew I had competition. I could’ve said: “It’s no use!” during the over-a-month-long training. But I decided that the job was too important for me. I wanted to have it. And I wanted it real bad.

So, I researched for many hours, brainstormed, wrote, edited, asked my husband to re-edit, re-wrote, and re-wrote some more. I checked what other About.com Guides are doing and tried to exceed what I saw.

You could guess how I felt when I received that email saying: “Congratulations! - ” I still have a long, looonnnggg way to go. But it sure feels good to be a part of of the biggest web companies (recently acquired by The New York Times) - and to see my work being viewed by thousands of readers every day.

So yes, don’t let competition get to you. Always, always give it your best shot and prove that you’re the one who could write that article (or story or novel or column). And, if you really created a knock-them-off-their-socks package, you’d surely get published. Not just once, but many times over.

Your Assignment: Which market did you choose to write for? Study the best article, the best stories, or the best poetry they’ve got. You’ll know this based on headlines, endorsements, and if applicable, reader responses. Compare it with your work and/or current projects. Are there similarities and differences? Then, find ways on how you can make your work better.