Call For Subscriber Writing, October 2024

I’m sorry that it’s been a few months! I don’t mean to use the fertility process and pregnancy as a free-floating excuse, but it’s true to say that I’ve been so deeply distracted because of that happy news. I am however taking the proactive step of scheduling a bunch of these posts in advance so that I can quickly edit them the day before they post. The next, for example, is scheduled for December 11th.

All submissions should be made via the Google Form. Don’t worry about formatting in terms of bolding and linking; just enter the information as requested in the form. Deadline for this month is Sunday, October 20th, at 10 PM EST. At that time I will disable the ability to submit new responses in the form until the next call, so get your submissions in on time. If you’re an old hand at this, you can click over to the form and submit your work and safely close this email. If you’re new to this, please read the submission information below to help us all out. Don’t forget to use the Google Form!!! Non-subscribers, if you want to take advantage of this forum to share your work, you know what to do.

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For those who are new, let me take a moment to let you know what this is all about, reiterate what it isn’t, and make a much-needed reminder of the format. As a regular feature, I present an opportunity for paying subscribers to share some of their writing with my mailing list of ~60,000 readers, free and paid. This is a subscriber perk, and it’s also something I really love to do because I’m very passionate about writing and writers and want to help people who are trying to build an audience. I emphasize that this is for sharing subscriber writing, not your podcast, your Twitch stream, or your Instagram. One thing that I have to reiterate here is that this is the opportunity to link to writing that’s already hosted elsewhere; it’s not, as some people assume, an opportunity to actually post your work here. If you’re looking for someplace to host your writing, why not start a free Wordpress or Substack, or use another blogging or newsletter service? Then you can link your work here. You can highlight a blog or newsletter or similar on its own, but it may be most useful to link to a specific post or story. If you are plugging a book, make sure to link to a publishing house listing or Amazon page or some other place where your book can be accessed by readers. I’ve had now had dozens of readers tell me that they meaningfully expanded their audience through this service before. That’s very gratifying for me, and I hope that when the post is run, you’ll check out what some of your peers have put together.

Make sure to use the Google Form!

If I messed up previously and promised to include your entry in a later edition, please respond to this email to remind me! If you submitted something before the submission period began, submit it again! And if you don’t use the Google Form, I have no sympathy if I fail to include you. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Yes, I do check your email against the emails on the subscriber list, so if ordinarily use a different one, point me to your subscribed email in the form.