Guest Posting Guidelines

Main Page: Guest Post

If you want to guest post, please read the following guidelines, and why you would want to guest post.

Post Topic

Your guest post must be on one of the following topics:

Writing Tips

Anything ranging from planning your book, how to write better, how to edit, tips on publishing your book, or your own experience with writing. I’d love to hear what you have to say, as every person’s writing experience and tips are going to be at least slightly different. Hearing from a different person in this subject will be especially fruitful.

Book Reviews

I currently haven’t given many book reviews as of yet, but this is a feature I will hopefully be doing a lot of in the near future. Tell the plot of a book you’ve read recently, what you thought of it, and why it was good. It has to be an action/adventure book (not fantasy), and I will allow book reviews that gives a negative spin on the book (tells people not to buy), if the book is well known and well liked, because it would be an influence to people. Obviously a negative review of a book poorly thought of would just be a waste, because people already know not to buy it.

Book Case Study

I haven’t yet done any of these, but in the future, I will hopefully be doing a regular case study of successful books to show why they were successful and what you can do to duplicate their success.

The 39 Clues

Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about The 39 Clues. It is a very interesting series, one that has many mysteries, and I love to hear new ideas about the series from a new perspective. So if you have any theories about what’s going to happen in The 39 Clues, my readers and I welcome you to send them.

Writing Rules

Every writer has their own “pet peeves” that they don’t like. Although I will certainly work with you through editing (if needed), it will be easier if you just don’t do things I don’t like or consider unacceptable in the first place.

• No swearing/bad words (even the “h” and “d” words count as swearing, as well as other variations of the word “poop”)
• No insults (I hope this won’t be a problem, but I definitely don’t want any insults to be thrown; even in good fun. You never know how people’s feelings may get hurt)
• No generalization (this is huge for me. I cannot tell you the amount of sites I’ve seen that generalize. The reason I especially hate generalizations is because I’m a pretty unique person with pretty unique ideas, and most generalizations simply don’t apply to me)
• Break up your paragraphs (who wants to read a big block of text? It’s unappealing and intimidating. On the other hand, don’t write choppily, either. Most people will probably know how to find that balance)
• Emphasizing (if you read this blog, you will probably notice that I frequently use bold, italicize, and underline in order to make a point. It would be helpful if you could do it, so we don’t have to do that in our editing. I also use header tags in order to show sections. These are very good and encourage you to put them in)
• Don’t be too formal (some people write blogs as if they were lawyers. One of the main appeals behind blogs is that it’s a great way for people to connect, share ideas, and learn. A blog is casual; don’t make it into a big business meeting)

Submitting Your Post

Don’t just submit your post; there are a bunch of things I want you do.

First, write a “cover letter.” A cover letter describes who you are and what your experience in the topic is. I feel kind of uncomfortable putting up a post from just anyone; I like to at least know I don’t have criminals and pedophiles posting on my blog, as no one would want to read the words of someone like that.

Next, carefully read over your post for any spelling and grammatical errors. These should easily be figured from a simple spell/grammer check.

Write a brief paragraph about yourself to put above the post (i.e. “Note: This is a guest post from Joe Schmidt, from Write and Light (link)), and one more detailed below it (Joe blogs about electric writing at Write and Light (link), which you should really check out. He also gives personal updates and great posts from around the blogosphere at Twitter (link), where you should follow him). If you don’t have a website, blog, twitter account, want to put another link to a social networking site, etc., then just adjust accordingly. Paste these into the post.

I use WordPress HTML (a blog platform software), for my posts. If you already have a WordPress account, just paste in the visual, click on the HTML tab, and copy that. If you don’t have a WordPress account, it’s fine; I can do it. It would just make it a little easier to not have to format it all over again.

Finally, go over to the contact form, paste it in, and send it.

Publishing the Post

Not very surprisingly, the work isn’t done once you send it to me; there are many things that still have to happen.

Once I receive and read the post, first I’ll send you a message back telling whether I’m accepting it or not. I’m very sorry to say, because I know how much work you put into writing this post for my blog. However, my readers come first, and I will not just accept anything; far from it. If I just flat out think it’s a horrible idea or tip, or isn’t well thought out, I won’t publish it.

If I accept your post, then I will shortly send you my revised version, for things you may have said I don’t like or perhaps could say better, and send them to you. Sometimes I will accept an idea if it’s really good, and then we can work together to make that idea into a post. That would happen at this stage.

We will go back and forth until we’ve finally got a final copy both of us are happy with.

The next part is pretty tough; waiting for the post to be published.

I run an editorial calendar on this blog to plan my posts. I sometimes have posts planned weeks into the future. Unless the post is extremely good or depends on time, it will most likely be a little while before the post gets published.

Once it finally does, I encourage you to respond to all the comments on the post (if there are any). I maintain a comment policy, and part of my policy is respond to everything. I ask you to do this because as you’re the one who wrote the post, you’ll be able to answer questions on it and take the praise better than I will.

So read the main guest post page and why you should guest post. Then, send your post to me either via the comment form below, through the comment form page, or by e-mail @johnstondaneiel4@gmail.com.

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