How to Write for The Steady Drop

Our official submission guidelines.

If you’re here, then you’re interested in having your stories published in The Steady Drop.

Welcome! We’re glad to have you.

However, before you start sending over every version of every story you’ve ever written, we’ve laid out a few guidelines to help you along the way.

How To Be a Writer for The Steady Drop

1. Write a response to this story.
2. Tell us a little about yourself, what you like to write about, and why it would fit in this publication.
3. Feel free to include links to past articles or even your off-Medium personal website.
4. We will review your stories, then add you as a writer if I think you would be a good fit at The Steady Drop.
5. Once confirmed as an author, you can start submitting drafts for us to review.
6. During the article review, we will and either a) publish it as is, b) make a few edits, or c) let you know that it needs some more work.

Editing will likely entail some grammar and punctuation stuff, along with adding our standard disclosure at the bottom of the article.

What We Are Looking For (Generally)

You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it’s your last.

Bullshit. Life is long.

You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.

Our main focus is on how the cohort of elder Millennials is going to navigate the that next fifty years. especially when this world is hyper-focused on the next news cycle?

Our overarching goal is to assess the clutter of information (and oftentimes, misinformation), process it through the filter of lasting personal impact, then make it accessible and actionable to our readers.

What We Are Looking For (Specifically)

1. Cite your work. You don’t need to have an official Works Cited page, but you do need to include links, references, or other citations that build trust in your work.
2. Make your writing flow. Your articles should have a natural rhythm, taking the reader on a journey. It can be in a straight line or ebb and flow between sections, but there needs to be some form of structure and cadence.
3. Edit, proof, and revise your work. Yes, we are reviewing your work prior to publishing, but we are not in the proofreading business. Do your best to submit the most error-free draft you can.
4. Only submit unpublished drafts. Medium uses the publication date, not submission date, in its algorithm, so submitting old material will just get it stuck in the back catalog of the publication, even if only recently accepted.
5. Use the right tags. Here are the main tags used at the Steady Drop. Millennials | Health | Mindfulness | Money | Relationships Additional ancillary tags are also great, as they can help niche down your audience. For example, if you are writing about college debt, you can use the main tag of Money, following up with Debt, Student Loans, College, and Personal Finance as additional tags.
6. Use great photos, but not too many. The best photo should be your first, either above or below the headline. Feel free to include other photos or graphics, but make sure they don’t distract from the writing. Always credit the photo source.
7. Do not sell. This publication is not to be used for affiliate marketing or other forms of direct selling, and we will no accept stories that serve no purpose of that advertising.
8. Limit your CTA. You are welcome to include a link to your website, new book, or email list in your profile bio. If you absolutely must include a CTA at the bottom of your post, we ask that you keep it to one sentence.
9. Use Medium’s paywall.While we like to publish the occasional free story, one of our goals is to support paid authors by maximizing their exposure. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Medium as a side hustle or your main source of income, we’ll do our best to help where we can.

The Takeaway

The main idea behind most Steady Drop articles is this:

1. Cut through the noise of short-term thinking.
2. Identify and interpret the signal of the best long-term actions.
3. Tell our readers how that applies to them.

That’s it, plain and simple.

If you feel like this is the type of material you would like to produce, then let us know.

If not, we’ll be happy to keep supplying actionable advice by interpreting all the paralyzing information out there.