Submission Guidelines

Women Writers, Women Books at booksbywomen.org welcomes guest blog posts from both published and unpublished women writers.

(Updated 3/8/13)

Do you have a deep love of writing? Are you a woman writer? Do you understand the value of the shared experience?

When you write for Women Writers, Women Books, you are engaging in a practice that recognizes the power of women coming together through writing.

Share with us

• Your real thoughts and feelings
• Real experience
• Vision, insights, hopes and more

We are a volunteer-run online magazine by writers who live active lives with or without families, balancing earning a living, going to school, and doing our own writing as well.

Your attention to detail and willingness to do your part is what makes this possible. Your participation is an integral part of this magazine – we couldn’t do this without you.

To become a contributing writer, follow these simple steps.

 

Before you query:

1. Attach a photo icon at gravatar.com. Get a photo icon associated with your email address (for WordPress comments) by visiting http://en.gravatar.com/. This way, your photo will show when you comment on our WordPress-hosted online magazine.

2. Comment on another writer’s post. Comment on a post on the site that resonates with you. Show that you read it and understood what was being said. Please be specific about what you agree with or like.

3. Get familiar with the site.

 

Querying:

1.  Email your query to editor@booksbywomen.org. A 1-3 sentence query is fine. Please attach links to your social media sites for a quick review of your writing and to increase your online, presence, and link to the post you commented on.

2. Wait a week or two. If you don’t receive a response within a week, please resend your query; sometimes we are extremely busy.

 

Steps for publishing your article:

1. Write your article. The article should be under 950 words including URLs to your social media sites. Include two photos (you and your latest book if you have one – 800×600 size is helpful) and email it to editor@booksbywomen.org for review.

2. Review your article. It is helpful for all of us that you proofread your work. Please make sure that your links work as well.

3. Acceptance. If your query is accepted, email your post to editor@booksbywomen.org for consideration. We will edit and publish it, and then we will send you a final draft for review.

4. Wait for editing. Wait for us to review, edit, ask questions, make highlights, add photos, and craft the title. We’ll add categories and tags to make your post easier to find.

5. Your post may take up to four weeks to receive a response. If you don’t hear back from us after a few weeks, feel free to inquire. Sometimes there’s an awful lot going on, so your inquiry can be helpful. You will receive an automated response letting you know that your email has been received.

6. Approve the final copy. We’ll send you a copy of the proposed piece for final approval before publication.

 

After publication:

When we publish your post, it will show up on @WomenWriters on Twitter. We also post it on our Facebook page with a different angle. In addition, we will retweet it periodically over time.

1. Retweet. Please retweet on Twitter the same day and a couple more times.

2. Invite comments. We suggest that you send a gracious, personalized note to a few chosen friends with a link to your post, inviting them to comment. The value for them is the link back to their own blogs or websites, increased visibility, and the possibility of making new connections. If you aren’t sure yet why this is important for us all, see this blog post titled Nine Reasons to be a Guest Blogger.

3. Link to us. Please post a link back to us from your blog. We really appreciate your doing this.

 

Questions?

If you have any questions, please email Rachel at assistanteditor@booksbywomen.org or Anora, editor@booksbywomen.org, the site admin.

 

Thank you so much. Let’s make this site valuable for us all!

(Updated 3/8/13)