Welcome newbies. If you look around you'll find some sage advice on submissions in the writer's room in the links at the top - most ignore them to some degree, but the more successful contributors (if success is your thing) kind of follow them most of the time. There's probably a correlation, but buggered if I can work it out.
Look at what seems to be working - that is, what the editors are currently posting on the front page, and compare to your subs. If your subs aren't getting picked, don't be disheartened, the vast majority of the subs in the writer's room don't get promoted to the front page, many I suspect were never meant to. Or you might be modelling on Titus' subs, in which case...
Try, modify and try again would be my advice.
The bit nobody tells anyone when they arrive is how to submit a ticker, because it looks like everyone is allowed to submit a heading and no body, but when you try it won't let you. Just put a full stop in the body and it will all work.
If you have a thick skin, hang on to it, if you haven't, then maybe the NB shop will sell you one. In time you will develop one anyway, any writer does.