Submission Guidelines

Women Writers, Women Books at booksbywomen.org welcomes guest blog posts from women writers.

(Updated 2/4/2012)

Let’s get below the surface, promote our work through sharing who we are as women writers. Let’s deepen the conversation and interweave it with the work of others. Let us write guest articles from the perspective of woman writers, writing to other women writers.

your real thoughts and feelings,
real experience,
vision, insights, hopes and more.

Thank you in advance for recognizing that this is a volunteer run online magazine by writers who are active with families, earning a living and writing. You attention to detail and willingness to do your part, makes this possible. Some other sites are requiring payment of $25 and up for your posts. Women Writers, Women Books is free.

QUICK SUMMARY:

1. Get your gravatar

2. Comment thoughtfully on one or more posts

3. Query editor@booksbywomen.org

4. When approved, register and post your piece and photos

5. Approve the formatted edited version before we publish it.

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DETAILS

1. ATTACH A PHOTO ICON at GRAVATAR.com. Get a photo icon attached to your email at http://en.gravatar.com/ so it will show when you comment on our WordPress Online Magazine.

2. COMMENT TO ANOTHER WRITER’s POST. Comment on a post on the site that resonates with you. Show that you read it. Be specific about what you agree with or like.

3. QUERY. Propose a topic to 1 – 3 sentences is fine. Attach links to your social media sites for quick review of your writing.

4. WAIT 1-2 weeks. If you don’t hear in a week, please resend, some times are way busy.

5. GET ACCEPTED. When your idea is accepted, follow these next steps.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

6. Write your article and email it to editor@booksbywomen.org for review.

7. Consider any suggested changes.

8. REGISTER when accepted.

9. WAIT for the word that you’re approved (too many spammers out there).

10. LOG IN. Login with your username and password at http://www.booksbywomen.org/wp-admin

11. UPDATE your PROFILE. Fill in your profile (click profile link on left sidebar) with your links and bio. (Copy and paste from another site in order to have links embedded.)

12. Click NEW POST, paste yours. No more than 1000 words. If more, please edit.

13. LOAD PHOTOS. 2-3. (If you have trouble loading the photos by clicking the little photo icon in the post and uploading photos from your desktop, you can email them to editor@booksbywomen.org for us to add.

14. ADD LINKS. Add the links to your online sites.

15. WAIT for EDITING. Wait for us to review / edit / ask questions / make highlights / add photos / tweak title… We’ll adjust and add categories, tags, and schedule.

16. TWO WEEKS. If you don’t hear back from us after a couple of weeks, feel free to inquire. Sometimes there’s an awful lot going on, so your inquiry can be helpful.

17. APPROVE FINAL COPY We’ll send you a copy of the proposed piece for your feedback, suggestions and approval.

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. We will also retweet it randomly over time.

18. RETWEET Please retweet on Twitter. Same day. And a couple of more times.

19. INVITE COMMENTS. We suggest you send a gracious individual note to a few chosen friends with a link, 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. See this blog post called Nine Reasons to be a Guest Blogger if you don’t yet know why this is important for us all.

20. LINK TO US. Posting a link back to us from your blog.

Ways to support Women Writers, Women Books

1. COMMENT. Comment on another writer’s post that is of interest to you.

2. WRITE ABOUT US. Write a blog post about this online women writers magazine, and be specific about any value you’re getting or would like to get.

3. INVITE YOUR WRITER FRIENDS to WRITE. Think of what women writer friends you know of who would enjoy guest blogging or reading a post here, and email them.

4. INVITE COMMENTS. Think of which friends you’re going to email to leave their comments. It really raises the profile of your post, and helps all of us.

5. VOLUNTEER.

Common Edits

1. Titles: Does your title pique curiosity? Does it have keywords related to your main topic?

2. Length: Is your post too long? Does it sustain interest? Have you read it aloud to see where you lose interest?

3. Typos: Have you spell checked your post in MS Word, or whatever you use for that?

4. Links: Have you embedded links to your books, your blog, an article, the book you’re talking about, the cities you refer to? Links make it more interesting, and make it easy for a reader to follow their own interests. (If you don’t know how, just copy the links, and we’ll get a reference on embedding to show you that.

5. Clarity: Did you say something that is unclear? Confusing? That leaves questions unanswered? Double check for that.

We’ll email you with any changes we feel the post needs. But the cleaner it is, the faster the turnaround will be. If it’s too much work to get it ready, we’ll let you know to revise and try again if you want.