How to Get Published in The Old Car Nut Book:

First of all, you do not have to be a professional writer. We suspect that most of you are not! It’s the content that is most important to us. We want your old stories and pictures and will edit the writing to make your story flow well and eliminate any grammatical or spelling errors through the wonder of Spell Check!

Stories should be between 1000-2000 words. If your story is shorter or longer, please don’t hesitate submitting it. Some stories are longer than others and some are great even though they don’t take long to tell. It’s your story.

Send us your best stories and we will be appreciative of your efforts and will work with each contribution as they come. 

Contributors’ Guidelines:

The Old Car Nut Book will accept contributions from all writers and photographers. We do not pay a fee for contributions. We hope that you will contribute for the sake of telling a cool story to our audience.

The stories we want have to do with things that happened, places you went and things you did while being involved with cars. In other words... what you did in the car as opposed to what you did to the car. 

We are not looking for a report of a car event or a gallery of miscellaneous car images. The old photos we want to see are the ones you have cherished and that relate to the story you are telling. See our content in Read Stories to get some examples.

The following are some guidelines for articles and photographs. Adherence to these few suggestions will increase the likelihood of your submissions being accepted and published.

Text Guidelines:

Submissions must be in English. While we do edit, please try to use proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, and structure. Make your story chronologically correct and flow well. Keep in mind, your reader hasn’t heard or read your story before.

Try to include as many facts as you can to support your story. Where were you, what time of year, who was there, who helped, who did the things you would never do… pertinent stuff!

Mix up the words. Using the same word over and over is boring. Many words have synonyms or substitutes, if you will. We suggest writing your story in a Word document or Open Office document. In Word, you can highlight a word and hit Shift+F7 and it will pull up a Thesaurus, showing a myriad of words to use as alternatives.
Don’t ramble. Stick to your subject. It must be more than a passing reference in your story.

Identify your photos. Captions help the reader follow your story and identify key players or vehicles and places.

Proofread, proofread, and proofread! While it is best to NOT keep going over and over your story, constantly changing it and never finishing, we do recommend that you get a second set of eyes or at least walk away for a bit and come back to it for a final reading before submission.

Most of all… Have fun! Dig deep and think of the stuff that you did that kept you playing with old cars. Whether you’re writing about hot rods, muscle cars, custom cars or whatever, inject some humor and a little irreverence in your words and pictures! We want to entertain your readers, right?

Photo Guidelines:

Pictures help convey the story, as well as the words, so please attach those old photos. There is no limit to the pictures we’d like to see.

High resolution digital images are what we need… files that will reproduce at 300 dpi (dots per inch) in the finished size. Due to the nature of the images we are seeking, most (not all) will have originated from an old (not digital) camera. When you scan or have your pictures scanned, make sure that they are in at least that 300 dpi format. If you don’t know how to do this or don’t have a business near you to do it, ask a teenager!

We’d like to see people in your pictures. That doesn’t mean we don’t want other images, but we want to see what you and your buddies looked like when everyone was thinner and had hair!

Finally:

All writing and images must be in digital format and sent via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Your story and images must be separate attachments. Please include your full name and State of residence so we may give you proper credit.

If you would like to do a phone interview or if you have any questions not addressed in our FAQ section please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Submissions can also be done on a CD and mailed to 8305 25th Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98117. (We prefer email)

And...

If you just don't have the time or inclination to submit a story, but you like the idea of The Old Car Nut Book and want it to succeed, monetary donations would be greatly appreciated. Your financial contribution will help me keep going to the shows and traveling to the people to get their stories. Please send your check to the address above.

Thank you and most of all I wish you continued enjoyment in the old car hobby as you share your time building stories with other Old Car Nuts!