With the exception of material generated by GAL staff and contributing editors, articles and plans published by the GAL are voluntary submissions. We are a non-profit educational organization; we don't pay for content.

Write to the editor first if you are considering submitting an instrument plan. All plans are electronically redrawn at GAL Headquarters. It is not necessary for you to produce a finished, labeled drawing on paper. What we need is a good accurate sketch of each major element (such as body outline, peghead, bridge footprint, brace profiles) plus accurate measurements. It will be a distinct advantage if you own the instrument or have ongoing access to it, and it is very likely that we will need to confirm numerous measurements during the redrawing process. It will also be very helpful to have lots of good hi-rez photos of the instrument from many angles including closeups of details and interior shots.

We do not reprint plans or articles that have already appeared in other publications or on the Internet. Authors of American Lutherie articles retain the copyright and grant to GAL an irrevocable license to publish the articles and to republish them in collective works and revisions. We ask that authors who reprint their articles in other publications or on the Internet give GAL full credit as the original publisher and provide a link to the GAL website. GAL retains exclusive right to the layout of all articles and all graphics produced by the GAL staff. Do not scan our magazine pages and put them on the internet.

Text of articles should be submitted by e-mail or on disk. Just flow the text into the body of an e-mail message. Or an attached Word doc is OK. PDF can work well to give me a look at an article draft, but it will usually not work for making an actual manuscript submission. If there is special typesetting involved, like a lot of foreign-language diacriticals or math formulae, a Word doc is probably best. If you use a Mac, be extra careful. We are strictly Windows, and we can sometimes have issues with native Mac applications. Please be sure that any formats you use are Windows-compatible. This is a good reason to send us text in the body of an e-mail rather than as an application file.

Please send photos as separate files, not as pictures placed in a Word doc. Photos should be large, not-compressed, hi-rez, extra-virgin files right off a digital camera. Just attach them to the e-mail message. Our connection is robust and fast, so large attachments are fine. Or send them on a CD. Or you can use a transfer site like YouSendIt.com or 2Large2Email.com. If the photos are “chemical,” please send the negs if you have them, or good prints if you don't. We will return original negs and prints if you so request.

Contact the editor with any questions and to submit files:

Tim Olsen, editor:
tim (at) luth.org