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The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

Guest Posting

[Update December 2019:

The Creative Penn is no longer accepting guest posts. This might change in the future, so please come back to this page for an update.]

I welcome guest posts on the blog as long as they follow the following guidelines:

  • Articles should be on the topics of writing craft for fiction and non-fiction, creativity, author mindset, or evergreen business principles. They should be written to a professional standard.
  • We no longer accept articles on short-term publishing or marketing tactics. Basically, will this still be relevant in 3-5 years?
  • The author of the post should be the author of a book, or be in some way related to the book industry.
  • The article should be useful or thought-provoking and the body of the article should not be marketing your book/product. However, it can be on a related topic e.g. an article on self-editing can be written by the author of a book on editing!
  • Please tailor your article to my audience – which means you should read some of the other posts and understand what the ‘feel' of the blog is. I don't want a copy and pasted chapter from your book.
  • Articles should be practical and actionable for the reader, with lots of subheads and bullet points that explain how to implement what the article is discussing. One clear way to tell whether a post is suitable is to count how many instances of “I” there are. Too many means it is not focused on actionable tips for the reader and needs re-writing. Yes, we want your experience, but as seasoning, not as the main course.
  • The article should be positive in tone, and as this is a clean blog, with no bad language or inappropriate references
  • Please include a resource section at the end with information about you, your book and where people can find you online. (This is your marketing bit!)
  • Articles should be 800-2000 words in length, although can be longer if the post is very valuable how-to material
  • Articles must be unique i.e. they should not be posted elsewhere first, or on your own blog. You can post it on your blog after it has gone up on this site but you should be writing it specifically for this audience.
  • You represent and warrant that this is your original work and not plagiarized and contains no objectionable or libelous material. You indemnify and hold The Creative Penn Limited and Joanna Penn personally harmless against any suits, claims, causes of action, expenses or costs of any kind including legal fees arising out of the content of the original work.
  • Final editorial control rests with me and I am likely to edit your article and or headline. I may also reject it if it is not appropriate or if it is too focused on marketing as opposed to useful information.
  • I do not accept posts from sites just wanting inbound links. I don't accept guest posts from anyone who is not in the writing/publishing/book marketing niche. I much prefer to have authors/publishing industry people on the blog writing ‘real' guest posts. Thank you!
  • There may be quite a significant delay in posting your article (i.e., 3 to 4 months) as I am often backed up with content and also change scheduling depending on whether something significant has happened or for one of my own posts. I will try to keep to a date if you have a launch or something but it will usually take 3 to 4 months after your article has been approved before is posted.
  • FYI, The Creative Penn gets over 500,000 unique visits per month as measured by Google Analytics

Here are a few examples of successful guest posts on the blog:

Please email your headlines ideas/guest post pitch to my assistant Alexandra at alexandra@TheCreativePenn.com

She will let you know if it is appropriate and when it will be scheduled. Articles are left on the front page of the blog for 2/3 days, and are promoted on Twitter, Facebook and Stumbleupon.

Thanks so much!

Image: Flickr CC Rocket Ship

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