American Agent & Broker Submission Guidelines

American Agent & Broker is designed for our 40,000 readers in the property/casualty industry — primarily independent retail agents and brokers, program administrators, wholesale brokerages, and insurance companies.

Contributed content for AA&B magazine, Web site, and e-newsletters should focus on the needs and interests of this audience, with an emphasis on practical advice on agency management and property-casualty insurance sales trends, techniques, and advice. Our readers are also interested in articles about how larger trends — such as the economy, current court decisions, legislation and regulation — affect their businesses. Articles should have broad appeal and focus on practical situations and applications. Blatantly self-promotional "infomercials" will not be considered.

All contributed articles become the property of AA&B and cannot be sold to other publications. Reprints are by permission only.

Prospective authors should read several recent issues of American Agent & Broker and speak with one of its editors before writing an article.

Please also provide contact information — mailing and e-mail address, phone, and fax number — for all persons profiled or quoted in your article.

Ideas

When pitching ideas to the editor, please send an e-mail with 6-8 bullet points on what the article will cover.

Length

Feature articles for our Web exclusives should be no longer than 800 words. AA&B accepts longer pieces (1,800 to 2,000 words) for the print edition of the magazine. Articles are particularly useful when based on the author's own experience.

Style

The first paragraph should say what the article is about and why the reader should be interested in it. Include essential background information on the topic here. Relate the rest of the article to subjects mentioned in the introductory paragraph. If you must include technical jargon or complicated terms in the text, follow them with brief explanations. Weave essential references into the narrative; do not use footnotes or endnotes. Whenever possible, please include statistics and examples to substantiate your premise. We also prefer articles that include infographics, such as sidebars, charts and graphs.

Manuscript Requirements

Send via e-mail to the editor with whom you are work (text-only or Microsoft Word format please).

Do NOT use any special formatting — such as boldface, underlining, or indents — other than that needed to produce a standard document.

Editorial and Review Processes

Submit all manuscripts on an exclusive basis. AA&B will not accept any manuscript that has been submitted to any other publication.

Acceptance is based on practicality, readability, technical soundness, originality, and interest to readers. All manuscripts receive a careful, judicious review, and the editors make every effort to assist the author in revising and editing a manuscript if, in the opinion of the reviewers, the subject is worth pursuing.

Once an article is accepted, an editor contacts the author to discuss any recommended changes. After revisions, the article is edited to conform to AA&B editorial style. We will send the author an edited version for final approval of factual information. Editorial style is subject to the staff. Regrettably, the AA&B budget makes no provision for payment of honoraria for published articles.

Author Attribution and Promotion

Authors may include up to 50 words of biographical information about their background or their firm's background. AA&B also requires a high-resolution JPG or GIF headshot of the author. Authors may include one (1) live hyperlink to their personal Web site or firm's Web site, provided that link does not take readers directly to a shopping cart or other type of e-commerce page.

Submission Checklist

• Submit article electronically on an exclusive basis (MS Word or text format only)
• Do not use special formatting in the text.
• Include data for opening page graphic.
• Include examples and/or case study(s).
• Provide suggested headlines
• Include the author's title, brief bio and high-resolution headshot

Editors

To discuss a manuscript or article idea with an editor, contact: Laura Mazzuca Toops, Editor