GLOBETROTTERS SUBMISSIONS
Tips To Remember When Submitting to Globetrotters in 2024
The important things we are looking for in your submissions moving forward
Hello Globetrotters!
We editors hope you have slid into 2024 with little difficulty and are looking forward to a bright and prosperous year. We wanted to take this moment to chat with you all and let you know how we are progressing as a publication. As usual, there have been some changes to Medium in the past year, so we want to discuss those and get you all caught up with our new article requirements moving forward.
We are now nearing 5.8k followers which makes us the largest travel publication on the platform. We continue to add new writers and are appreciative of those who take the time to share their well-written travel stories with us. We are constantly amazed at the incredible stories that come our way!
While most stories are written with much care and attention, there are still those that leave us wondering why. Why was it written with such carelessness? Why have the guidelines not been followed? Why did we accept the writer in the first place?
So without further ado, let's take a look at what is required for article submissions moving forward into 2024.
Detecting AI
I’m going to start off with the biggest change (and our biggest challenge) in 2023 — the popularity of writing with AI. As we stated last year, we have no tolerance for any article that is written using AI technology.
Up until now, we have relied on our instincts to figure out what articles have AI in them or not. But we editors are now using 2 different platforms that will detect AI in the writing for us. This is a much more accurate way of approaching this issue, and we have been alarmed at what we have found in some articles that have already been published with us.
Moving forward, if we even sniff AI, your writing will be filtered through an AI detector. Of course, quite often there is a small percentage of AI in even the most human-written articles. Usually, this comes from using research statistics and other information that we gather from the World Wide Web to accentuate our writing.
Thankfully, though, the AI detectors that we use highlight the sentences that they think are written with AI. If we determine that they are sentences that include research information, or a sentence that is frequently said, then we will give it a pass. Even our articles sometimes come in at 1–4% AI written, even though we know ourselves that we have written them.
Please, please, PLEASE, DO NOT submit AI-written articles to us! It makes our work so much harder, and remember, we are all volunteers here. Having to take the time to check these articles is time-consuming and frustrating.
Title and sub-title
Of course, all articles need a title and it is an important hallmark of a great article. You MUST have a catchy title if you expect people to be curious enough to click on your article to read it. Often not enough care and attention is put into creating titles and we want to encourage you to do better. Put yourself in your reader's shoes and come up with something that is impossible to resist. Your title will tell them what the article is about and will entice them to click on it.
Moving forward, we also require a sub-title. This is a short line beneath the title that gives a bit more information about the article.
Often we have seen these come in too long. It is not a place to write multiple sentences, it is simply a place to add a bit more context to your title. Using this feature wisely will also bring readers to your article.
Photographs
As another requirement, we now want a single photograph placed below your title and sub-title and before the body of the text. This photo will further entice readers to read your article.
Early in 2023, we decided that we would no longer allow stock photography in Globetrotters. This means no Unsplash, Wiki Commons, Pexel, or others. ALL PHOTOS MUST BE YOUR OWN or ones that you can use with permission such as those from your friends or family.
You must also credit ALL photos. You can do this on each photo, or you can simply state ‘all photos by author’ on the lead photo. Either way, we need to know who took the pictures.
For further reading, JoAnn Ryan, our publication owner, has put together this helpful article:
Listicles and ‘how to’ stories
We will no longer be accepting stories that provide a list for readers — for example, ‘10 reasons why traveling to Europe is overrated’. At Globetrotters, we want travel stories. Stories that tell of your adventures and the things that you have encountered as you move around the world.
Similarly, we don’t encourage stories that tell others how to travel. Instead of telling people how to do it, tell us your story and how you did it. This will have a far greater impact and we will get to know a little more about you and how you travel. Of course, recommendations are welcome but steer clear of saying that your way is the best way. Everyone is different and we all have our own travel styles.
Tags/Topics
Medium has changed its language around tags, now referring to them as ‘topics’. Using proper topics is also crucial to the success of your article. If you do not use appropriate topics, the algorithm will not send it to the correct readers. Therefore, as a bare minimum, we require that ALL Globetrotter's stories use the topic ‘TRAVEL’. Beyond that, we have no topic requirements, unless, of course, it is a submission to our monthly challenge, which requires the topic ‘monthly challenge’.
Be creative in choosing your topics. Pick out the top topics that best showcase your article. Often highlighting the country you are writing about is a good strategy. Or you can use topics that best describe the things you saw, the activities you did, or even the things you ate. Anything that relates to your article will help it to be seen by those who are looking for that specific information.
Tagging other writers
While we encourage you to always tag stories of other writers, we only require them in our monthly challenge submissions. There, we require that TWO stories from fellow Globetrotters be used — not just any random Medium writers.
Often our challenge stories either do not have other writers tagged, or they are tagged incorrectly. If you are unclear about how to properly tag writers, please read the following article by editor Anne Bonfert about how to do so:
Using pull and block quotes
While some articles recommend using these features as much as possible, to make your writing look interesting, others insist that they should only be used for their appropriate and intended use. Technically, there are only two reasons to use the quotation feature.
The first type of quote is called a ‘block’ quote and should only be used when you are quoting someone's speech or text from a book or online.
Block quotes look like this.
The second type is called a ‘pull’ quote. These are used when you are highlighting a passage that has already been used in your writing.
Pull quotes look like this.
We at Globetrotters do recommend that you take the time to learn when and why to use this feature, though you will not be punished if you use them the incorrect way.
Read here for a much more detailed article about how and when to use this feature.
Replying to comments
When a reader takes the time to read your article, PLUS leave a comment for you, we highly recommend that you take the time to clap and comment back. We have seen many writers who simply clap once for their comments, and don’t leave a reply, and we feel that this is not the best that you can do.
Engagement is the number one factor that will determine your success on Medium. If you don’t take the time to engage with others and thank them for reading your articles, they will stop reading them.
You must set aside time to not only read other writers writing, but to engage with them by clapping, highlighting (I’ll admit I’m terrible at this), and commenting. PLUS, always thank others for their comments on your writing. It takes very little of your time but will show others that you appreciate their time.
Application process and following guidelines
In 2023 we streamlined our application process to become a writer for Globetrotters. Our instructions are very clear on how to do so, yet about 80% of the submissions we receive do not follow the guidelines that we have laid out. If you do not follow the guidelines in your application, you will be rejected immediately!
Similarly, if the guidelines for submitting articles, that have been laid out here, and elsewhere, are not followed, we will not publish your article — and we may, or may not, leave a note as to why it was rejected. All writers must take responsibility for their writing and make sure that it is the best they can do while following ALL guidelines.
If you are interested in becoming a Globetrotters writer, read our guidelines for doing so carefully:
Plus, please take the time to read our FAQs. JoAnn Ryan has kept this document up to date with everything you need to know about joining and writing for Globetrotters.
Quality of stories
It has come to our attention that some feel that once they have been accepted as writers for Globetrotters, we will publish their writing no matter what moving forward. This is not the case.
Even our most seasoned writers have been, at times, sending us articles that have not been written with care and attention. Moving forward, we will be tightening the reins further and will only accept writing that we deem worthy of being published on the platform. Remember, the better it is written, the better chance you have of getting boosted.
Boosted stories
Medium introduced boosting 2023. It is a program where ‘boost nominators’ will nominate your stories to the Medium staff, and they will then decide if your writing deserves a boost or not. The boosting of your article means that its visibility is elevated and you will inevitably get more eyes on your story.
Of course, this also brings in more money and statistics are showing that boosted articles make roughly ten times more money than non-boosted articles. JoAnn Ryan is our boost nominator, and she keeps a close eye on quality content that is written in the publication.
To see last month's boosted stories, JoAnn has them all listed in her monthly wrap-up posted at the top of the Globetrotters home page.
Moving forward
As your dedicated editors, we are ecstatic with how far this publication has come in a relatively short period. We will continue to streamline our requirements and continue our commitment to not only you, the writers, but also to our readers, to make Globetrotters the best travel publication out there.
We editors, JoAnn Ryan, Adrienne Beaumont, Anne Bonfert, Michele Maize, and I, Jillian Amatt, thank you all for joining us on this fabulous journey and look forward to many more years of traveling together through your wonderful words and photographs!
Let’s all make 2024 our best year yet!
