The Parenting Portal: Submission Rules

Everything you need to know before you submit articles

As you can probably tell, this is a new publication. I’m still navigating the system, so these rules will probably change over time. Here’s where I am right now.

1. What will I accept?
2. What won’t I accept?
3. Are there any formatting guidelines?
4. How do I edit?
5. When will your article be published?

1. What will I accept?

This is a general parenting publication. It’s not just for parents though. We were all parented by someone, so you can submit articles here even if you don’t have kids.

However, your main theme should be around the parenting experience. So, for example, I’m looking for articles on:

• Your experiences as a parent (biological, adoptive, foster carer).
• Your experiences of being parented.
• Unusual parenting experiences — It would be great to hear from people who have worked for parents as nannies/au pairs. What epic fails and successes did you see?

Your articles can be happy, sad, heart-warming, reflective, funny or just plain useful. Get all of those in one article, and you hit the jackpot (no, there isn’t a prize).

I’m open to different article formats. You can write short-form or long-form. But, I prefer articles not to be longer than 8 minutes.

I’ll look at longer ones, but you should think hard about article length before you submit. Readers are more likely to click into a shorter 3 to 5 minute article and read it than they are to open or read a 15-minute piece.

Please do not submit articles that you have already self-published or put in another publication. I only accept unpublished drafts.

At the moment, you can only submit one article a week. This gives me the chance to get used to how things are going to work and to give your article as much visibility as possible.

2. What won’t I accept?

What can I say. I’m fussy, as you’re about to find out…

• Fiction — I’m not accepting fiction at this stage. There are lots of better publications for this. If you aren’t writing about something that really happened, then this is not the publication for you.
• Contentious stuff — Keep things civil and clean. Don’t hate on anyone for racial, political, gender or whatever reasons. I’m not likely to publish anything that is too sexual. There’s a difference between writing a funny story about how you first found out that your parents were still having sex and giving a blow-by-blow account of how they went at it on the kitchen table. I don’t mind swearing if it is used carefully. If your writing is full of naughty words for shock-value effect, then I’m likely to send it back to you.
• AI-generated copy — I won’t publish anything that smells like it was written by a bot. If you submit obvious AI copy, I’ll reject it and take you off my writer list. Bear in mind that articles can look bot-written if there is nothing of the writer in them. Be yourself, write good stuff, don’t just regurgitate stuff you found on Google in a tired listicle, and we’ll be fine.
• Engagement requests — I don’t accept articles that ask the reader to leave claps, highlights or comments.
• Multiple CTAs — I won’t accept articles with any affiliate or sales links. I don’t mind one or two CTAs (i.e. Ko-Fi or social media links at the end of the piece).
• Too many images/videos/article links — I don’t accept articles with a lot of unnecessary images/videos or article links. A couple are fine but if you have more links than words, then your article isn’t a good fit here. Photo stories are an exception.
• Articles without sources — If you put anything in your article that isn’t common knowledge (like stats), or mention information from somewhere else (a report or news article on another site), then you should put any sources you use (either inline or at the end of the article). I won’t accept your article until you do.

If you aren’t sure about submitting something or have an idea you want to run by me, leave a comment on this article or send me a DM from it.

3. Are there any formatting guidelines?

All articles need to have a formatted title, subtitle and an image below them. Kickers are fine if you use them.

All images have to be attributed to show you can legally use them. This includes anything you create with AI. If you don’t put attribution under an image, I’ll reject the article.

Use your judgement on whether an article needs section heads/sub-heads. I know that some writers don’t like to use them when they are writing memoir type articles. I can live with that.

If you don’t know how to format, read this:

I do have some formatting no-nos you need to know about:

• Freeform blocks — I know some people write articles in one block of text. I don’t accept this format. It’s hard on the reader and won’t do you any favours. Please put some paragraphs in if you write this way.
• Mind-blowing formatting — I’m not a big emoji fan in articles; I don’t much like stories that are full of capitals, bold and italic bits either. One or two emojis and a bit of emphasis is fine. Stick in a load of any of this stuff and I’ll say no. Let your writing talk for you.

You get five topics/tags on every article. Please use ALL of them. Each tag gets you in front of a specific readership. If you only use two or three, you miss out.

Tags like Parenting, Parenting Tips and Parenting Advice should work well. You can also dip into other topics by using tags like Memoir, Life Skills and This Happened to Me. Be creative. There is a The Parenting Portal tag. You don’t have to use it but if you have a slot, then sticking it in as your fourth or fifth tag would be nice.

4. How will I edit?

I’m aiming for editor-light here. I will change the odd typo if I spot it. If something in your article doesn’t make sense, I’ll flag it with you in a DM. You can decide whether to change it or not.

If your article is full of typos and grammatical mistakes, I’ll send it back. You can fix it and resubmit if you want. Or, you can hate me forever and never come back. Your call.

5. When will your article be published?

Right now, I’m aiming to publish articles within 24/48 hours. Ideally, same day.

I’m on the site every weekday. I dip in and out at weekends. If I’m not around, anything you submit over a weekend will be left until the following week.

I’m also in the UK. I work on GMT hours. Wherever you are in the world, we’ll have some crossover, but I might not be around when you are all the time.

If submissions take off, then I might schedule them in advance to only publish a few articles a day. This gives everyone a chance to have front page visibility for a decent period. If I do this, I’ll let you know when the article will be published in a DM.

I’m really aware of how hard it can be to know when an article will appear when you submit it to a publication. You don’t always want it put out on a day you’re publishing something else. If you want an article to appear on a specific day, then put a DM in your draft telling me what you want. If I can make it work for you, I’ll do it.

That’s me done. If I’ve missed something out, let me know in a comment.

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