The Curiouser Reader.

Please read for updated submission guidelines.

Greetings to all avid readers, curiouser and curiouser folk, wordsmiths and metaphorical treasure hunters! Here are the guidelines and inspiration for writing for this new publication in 2022, as well as how to apply as a contributor.

It is a pleasure to present to you this new Medium publication, The Curiouser Reader, which mostly aims to fill in a gap on this platform about exploring ideas or topics from books. We know there may be similar approaches in other publications, and writers that go solo about this fun endeavour, and plenty of book-talk generally afoot. But we created this publication because we were looking for a further shade of overthinking, an itch that we couldn’t quite put to rest. We tried to turn up the nerd dial, and came across an empty space, and thought, “hey, there’s a little niche here (and we wants it!)”.

What we are looking for:

You can explore science theories if you are a fan of Douglas Adams or Isaac Asimov; historical backgrounds of an author’s real life which could have been the inspiration behind a book’s events (Les Mis and the French Revolution?); the evolution of social justice themes… But anything you decide to explore needs to be inspired by a book, series of books or an author.

Fun and thoughtful book reviews are also welcome. But they need to go deep into the topic of the book too, and offer some external referencing other than the book itself. Also, what we are not looking for are articles of the “how-to” kind, general recommendations, or fiction or poetry pieces. We could allow some rare exceptions if the topics are fitting. But there are many other fantastic Medium publications out there that cover those, so maybe consider trying them first. We don’t want to step on our cousins’ toes!

Edit: please, send articles on productivity, business, making money, practical advice and similar to other publications. We reserve the right to publish some articles on these topics, if the overall story in them goes deeply enough into the topic, offering extra external referencing, analyses of the author, and it is in keep with the guidelines stated on this post. We are mostly a philosophical publication; we like to explore and to dwell into meanings. We recommend exploring Medium tags on related topics so articles of this other kind can reach a better home. Also, the publication’s language is English only: we will not publish pieces in other languages.

Minimum length of articles should be 4 minutes read, as we believe any less than that does not allow for enough insight, which is precisely what we are looking for. Short reviews and short form articles will not be welcomed.

You can check the article below for an idea of what we are looking for:

Writing style and formatting:

Please make sure your article contains the following elements:

Your title and subtitle are the first pieces of information that the reader will see. All articles at TCR need to follow Medium recommended formatting (below), and you can make use of the free tool “Capitalize my Title”.

Also, you could make use of the free and fabulous Grammarly to make sure typos and other errors don’t make it to the final stage. We are happy to do some editing before publication, but the piece needs to be as polished as possible by you. Nice and uncomplicated formatting with adequate spacing and use of titles and subtitles, images with all their sources (and brownie points for writing Alt-text descriptions on them, we are all for accessibility!).

Edit: advice

In order to help and improve the reading experience, please consider how your article looks. Have you produced an impenetrable wall of text? Break it down with some titles throughout the article to capture the main ideas (make a listicle), or use breaks (I have used a few on this article). Or make a bulleted list. Or add some embeds and more images. The editor might add some breaks on submitted articles for this purpose. Also, the editor will add if necessary a private note with suggestions for further improvement. But please understand that suggestions are done in good faith, to improve the piece and its readability. We cannot accept pieces which may lack this fundamental level of quality.

Note on affiliate links: these are accepted, but they need to be disclosed to the reader at the start of the article or right next to the link itself. You can use a note in brackets, for example: (this is an affiliate link, which means I will get a small commission if you buy the book through it, thank you for considering).

Here is an article about how to embed Instagram posts in your story:

You can also embed other content, such as YouTube videos.

Footnotes on images & citation

**SUPER IMPORTANT**

All your images need to have a footnote, composed of description, source (with its link), and usage rights. Also, please consider learning about Alt-text on images, as mentioned earlier.

If you are publishing your article as part of the Medium Partner Program, it means that you are eligible for payment if people spend enough time reading it. Therefore, you are benefiting from the content you have published. And this is why you need to make sure that you have permission to use images or other content.

Regarding images, you need to make sure they are described on the source as: royalty free, creative commons licensed, free to use, or similar. You can find images of this kind on Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, FreeImages, Image Source, or Wikimedia Commons (on WC, please check permissions for each image, as not all of them are automatically on the public domain, and licenses need to be acknowledged often). If you want to use an image from a media outlet — news websites, magazines, and similar — you may not have permission to reproduce these images, so look for an alternative.

Also within the body of the post, please make sure as well to cite your sources and add the appropriate links to them for your claims —the editor is a librarian, so beware of plagiarism!

If you are interested in writing for us, please comment on this article with your Medium handle, so we can add you as a contributor. You can send us one of your previously published stories, if you want us to publish it too! We prefer unpublished drafts, but we will consider previously published pieces if they follow guidelines. We are very happy to welcome both brand new writers and seasoned ones. After we have added you to our list of contributors, you will be able to see The Curiouser Reader on your draft options for publication. And when you are ready to publish, please add your finished draft to The Curiouser Reader, so we can receive it and post it.

Here is a help article with detailed instructions on how to add a draft, or previously published article, to any publication (after making sure you have been added as a writer):

After you send your draft or story to us, please allow at least two days until publication or feedback. If your story is rejected, there will always be feedback for you, which often means that you need to review these guidelines before submitting again. There is only one (already busy) editor at the moment, and The Curiouser Reader is still quite a new project. Thanks for your patience :)

Thank you very much for reading and considering writing for us, we can’t wait to see your pieces!

📖✒️