The Writing Cooperative Submission Requirements and Style Guide
By: Justin Cox
Tags: Social Media, Media, Life Lessons, Writing, Life

Stories published by The Writing Cooperative are owned by the author. Writers may remove stories from our publication at their discretion. However, writers who habitually remove stories from our publication without notice will lose the ability to submit.

By submitting to the Writing Cooperative, you agree to comply with ALL of our rules and requirements.

Writers whose submissions are repeatedly rejected for violating our rules may lose the ability to submit to The Writing Cooperative.

Rule 1: Medium’s rules

Submissions must comply with Medium’s Rules, Ad-Free Policy, Content Guidelines, and Curation Guidelines. Stories violating Medium’s rules will be reported.

Rule 2: Distribution

2a: Unpublished

Submissions must be unpublished. This ensures stories gain the most exposure possible. Submissions must be original and previously unpublished elsewhere. Stories may be republished to your personal blog, LinkedIn, or another publication outside of Medium only after publication by The Writing Cooperative. Stories published by accident may not be deleted and resubmitted; that is a violation of Medium’s rules on duplicate content.

2b: Metered

Additionally, we require locked (or what Medium calls metered) content. Placing stories behind Medium’s paywall brings writers the potential to receive compensation through Medium’s Partner Program.

Rule 3: Non-fiction

Submissions must be non-fiction. We do not publish fiction or poetry.

Rule 4: Family-friendly

Submissions must be family-friendly. We reserve the right to reject content deemed offensive or inappropriate for our broad audience.

Rule 5: Content

5a: Quality

Submissions must be unique, well organized, and of high quality. Anything derivative, too abstract, unclear, meandering, lacking a clear purpose or take-away, or not focusing on creativity or writing will be rejected. Personal takes and opinions are welcome, but diary-like blog posts are not.

5b: Clickbait-free

Titles and subtitles must not be anything considered clickbait. A clickbaity title includes anything that withholds context, over-promises, exploits, is overly hyperbolic, misleads, or relies on gimmicks. Clickbaity titles and subtitles will be changed by our editors, or the submission will be rejected.

5c: Not Medium-centric

Anything solely focused on Medium is rejected. We want to help all writers improve their craft, not just on Medium, but everywhere they write and publish. Passing mentions of Medium are permissible. For example, including Medium in a submission comparing options for writers to showcase their work online is acceptable, while a submission about maximizing Partner Program revenue is not.

5d: Cite all sources

Every reference, claim, quote, or acknowledgment must be backed up with evidence and links to the original source. Submissions making claims without citing or linking to sources are rejected. When citing sources with reference notes as opposed to inline-links, please follow the formatting provided in 8d.6.

5e: Absolute free

While we seek to provide aid to writers of all backgrounds, we acknowledge everyone is different. What works for one person may not work for another. As such, any submission based on an absolute claim is rejected. For example, submissions titled “Why You Can’t Live Without X” or “Writers Should Never Do X” are rejected.

Rule 6: Spam

Submissions must not be spammy. We do not publish stories whose sole intent is to sell or promote a book, blog, service, tool, or anything we deem a product. Honest product reviews that help our community make informed decisions are acceptable; ads or press releases are not.

Writers may promote their book, blog, service, tool, or other product with a short text link at the bottom of the story.

6a: Affiliate disclosures

Affiliate links and product endorsements must be appropriately disclosed in an obvious and unavoidable way. Failure to disclose affiliate links or products provided for promotional review is a violation of the law.

Affiliate links must be disclosed either by adding (affiliate link) next to the link in question or providing an affiliate declaration before any affiliate links appear in the submission. Anything containing undisclosed affiliate links or an affiliate link disclosure at the bottom of the submission is rejected.

Stories using a link shortening service like Bit.ly to obfuscate affiliate links are rejected.

6b: Inline links

We want you to link to other content in the story, especially other Writing Cooperative content. This helps enhance your story’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through discoverability. Links should be inline, like this one here, and relevant to the content of your story. Inline links related to the story’s content are acceptable and encouraged. However, an overabundance of self-promotional links or anything that feels “spammy” is not.

6c: Card links

Stories may contain a maximum of two self-promotional links using Medium’s embedded card-style links. See the example of an embedded card-style link below.

6d: Tagging writers

Tagging other Medium members is only acceptable when the content is relevant. Stories overusing tags are rejected.

Rule 7: CTA

Submissions must be free of most calls to action (CTA). A call to action is something requesting the reader do something. Any request should be reasonable, short, and not capture user information directly within the story. A single text link inviting newsletter subscriptions is acceptable, while embedding a sign-up form is not.

Any submissions requesting claps, slowly reading through to the end, or asking for payment of any kind (including linking to Venmo, Square Cash, etc.) are rejected. Additionally, keep social media follow requests to a minimum.

Calls to action (CTA) must appear at the end of a story. Writer biographies may appear below the CTA; otherwise, the CTA must be the last portion of the submission.

Calls to action using section heading formatting of any kind will be rejected. Further, CTAs may not be entirely in bold or blockquote and must follow the standard text formatting rules. CTAs in italics are permissible. Calls to action may be no longer than three text lines, contain no graphics, and otherwise not intrude on the reader’s experience.

We reserve the right to remove calls to action that are not in compliance with these rules from submissions that are otherwise in compliance and ready for publishing.

Rule 8: Publication ready

Submission must be ready to publish. Our Style Guide, included below, is an extension of this rule. All submissions must be appropriately formatted, contain unique and correctly cited images, and have engaging and descriptive titles. Writers are expected to fully edit and vet all pieces before submitting them for publication.

8.1 Error free

Stories must be written in fluent U.S. English and free of spelling, grammatical, and language issues.

(affiliate link) for catching obvious spelling and grammatical issues before submission. Want a discount? 👀 The Writing Cooperative recommends ProWritingAid (affiliate link) for catching obvious spelling and grammatical issues before submission. Want a discount? Join our Patreon community today

8.2 Paragraph format

Submissions containing improperly written paragraphs, and overusing one- or two-sentence paragraphs are rejected.