WRITING TIPS

Contribute Your Writing Tips

Storymaker is looking for your writing tips. Find out what we’re looking for and how to submit

Update 25th Sept 2021: Storymaker will no longer be accepting contributions and will close permanently on 1st October 2021. Thank you all for your contributions since its launch.

If you’ve been around the Storymaker house, you’ll know that the content writers share here is primarily poetry and prose. Fictional stories of love, hate, gain and loss, happiness, sadness, depression and anxiety, work and play, life and death; the full spectrum of human experience and emotion finds representation here.

But now we’re looking to broaden our offering and add to the small existing collection of articles on the writing process. Under the tag “Writing Tips” we’ll be publishing content that helps poets and prose writers improve their craft and develop their skills in business of writing. So we’re putting the call out for your submissions.

You’ll Get A Broader Reach

Every week in the Poetry & Prose Newsletter, we’ll be taking your “Writing Tips” and sharing them with our readers. Here you’ll get the added benefit of reaching our full subscriber base as well as the usual Medium distribution. Where we have more than five articles submitted by our writers in the previous week, we’ll select those five we feel are most original and provide the best value to readers. Each writer can only have one article included in any one newsletter.

You’ll Get To Promote Your Products & Services

This is a new direction for Storymaker. When you write about the writing process or indeed the business of writing, you can include links to your services, products, or third party affiliate products. Promotion of affiliate products can be a slippery slope into sleaze so there are certain conditions around including these kind of links.

1. They must be contextual. In other words, the links must be directly related to the content on which you’re writing.
2. The affiliate product you are offering should be something you have used or are currently using.
3. Image based links or embedded code is not allowed.
4. Content must comply with Medium Advertising Policy

Read the Storymaker Affiliate Disclosure

Topics To Write On

Now, we know there’s a raft of content here on Medium already covering the writing process, so how do we differentiate? Well, we’d like you to focus your contributions within the realm of Poetry & Prose. Put the writers here on Storymaker at the front of your mind when you’re writing.

Ask yourself; how can I position what I know to address the needs of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction writers? Areas to consider writing content includes but are not limited to;

• Design
• Structure
• Editing
• Marketing
• Publishing
• Business (making a living from writing)

Writing Tips Submission Guidelines

1. Content Must Be Non-Medium Related. So we’re not looking for how writers can succeed on Medium. Think broader than Medium and more towards helping writers get published traditionally or self-publishing. Think freelancing also.
2. We Only Accept Unpublished Drafts because content that has already been published on Medium will appear further down the homepage. The Medium algorithm prioritises chronologically so there’s no sense submitting old material.
3. Being Added As A Writer. If you’re not already a Storymaker writer, comment with “add me as a writer” below and you’ll be added as a writer. You will then be able to add new stories as drafts whenever you please. However, they will be queued to go out as per our editorial process. That means they won’t be published one after another, there will be a day or two between your articles published.
4. Introduce Your Piece. This is not always necessary, but rather than just jumping right in, it’d usually good for you to share a paragraph introducing your article — a quick summary as to what the reader will learn.
5. Offer a Process The Reader Can Follow that will help them achieve the same or similar result. How-to articles work well here.
6. Aim between 800 and 3000 words. Less than that might be okay but to detail a process it must have some substance and less than 800 words might not always do it.
7. Editing & Formatting. We require our writers to be the editors of their own work. That means you need to run through your submission for spelling, punctuation and grammar. If your work is sloppy, it’s likely to be rejected. Use ProWritingAid or Grammarly or a similar tool. Use Medium’s built-in formatting tools too. Here’s an article that will help you get your head around formatting.
8. Tag Your Article. “Writing Tips” before you submit.
9. DON’T add an image. We’ll add the image for you. The article image will be the same fo all article published under “Writing Tips” to help them stand out from other material here on Medium. If you add your own image it will be removed and replaced with the “Writing Tips” placeholder image.
10. Add Links To Your Products & Services. You can add links to your books, other products or indeed writing services, but don’t go too heavy — keep it to three at most. Always make your links relevant and contextual. However, YOU MUST DISCLOSE that your story includes affiliate links. If you don’t, your story will be rejected.
11. Include Screenshots that show the step by step process.
12. Email List Sign-up Forms are Not allowed. This is in line with Medium’s advertising policies and has been in place since 2018.
13. Republishing Content from your personal or business site is allowed but only where you have taken the time to make it relevant. Avoid simply cutting & pasting your article as this will likely result in it being rejected.

That’s all I’ve got. This guide is subject to change so check back regularly to ensure that you’re keeping within the guidelines. Remember; if your article is poorly written, is missing important information or is blatant marketing exercise, then it will be rejected. A good place to start is to read Medium’s Advertising Policy. We’re looking to add real value to our readers so best advice I have for you is to get in deep and give readers plenty of detail.

All the best for now!

— Larry

(This story contains affiliate links. If you purchase using these links, Storymaker or the writer may receive a gratuity. Read the affiliate disclosure article).