Welcome to Jim Baen's UNIVERSE, a magazine of science fiction, fantasy, and fact.

Posting to the Baen's Universe Slush List

There are a couple of ways to post to Slush. For shorter articles, posting directly onto the bar is very easy. Several people have posted stories in excess of some 15,000 words this way.

Please do not attach word processing documents to posts in the bar.

Please put your submission in the bar as in-line text.

You will have to have created an account on the bar. Go to http://bar.baen.com and register.

Write your story in whatever word processing program you use. Be sure to put double returns between paragraphs. Then select all of it. To do that, for the very inexperienced, hit Ctrl A. Then put it on the clip board by hitting Ctrl C. It won't look like anything happened, but that's okay.

Then, sign on to the bar, go to the Baen's Universe Slush conference and start a new topic. (Note: Please don't use 1632 Slush or the general slush conference by mistake!) Put the title of your story in the subject line, tab down to the body, and hit Ctrl V. Your story will appear. Then hit the post button.

Now go to the slush comments conference and start a new topic with the title of your story in the subject line, ask for comments and post. You're done, except for waiting for comments.

A couple of words of warning.

DO NOT put any punctuation in your subject.
DO NOT use quotation marks. It will cause your post to show up WITHOUT a topic.

For longer articles, you may need to use the e-mail instructions below:

The easiest way to post a new story to slush is to do it from e-mail. The spell checker on your word processor will take care of checking your story, and your Email client checker the regular posts.

These instructions are rudimentary with specific instructions for Microsoft Word. Those of you who are computer whizzes are gonna do it your own way regardless. But for the newbie who's never done it before -

In your word processor . . .

Save the story as "My Story v01." (The v01 means version 1) This makes a new file so you don't mess up any previous versions. Not all changes are beneficial.
Search and replace to put double carriage returns between the paragraphs. You can leave the tabs in, but don't count on them working for everyone. In Word, that is accomplished by searching for ^p and replacing with ^p^p.
"Stupefy" quotes. (You want straight quotes and apostrophes, not typographers' quotes) In Word, do a search for quotes in the help menu.
There doesn't appear to be a limitation on the number of words in an e-mail submission. Cut and paste the story from the word processing document to the body of the e-mail you're sending.
- Mail it to <baens_universe_slush@bar.baen.com>
Ask for Comments
- Create a new E-mail inviting comments on your story.
- Set the subject to "My Story v01 - comments"
- Ask people to comment on your story.
- Mail it to <baens_universe_slush_comments@bar.baen.com>
Don't edit the old uploaded version on the listserver
Upload any new version only after you have made significant changes as "My Story - v02"

Make sure you're on the mailing list for slush comments. That way you can simply reply via E-mail to answer comments.