Atta Girl: Submission, Pitching, & Participation Guidelines
By: Shani Silver
Tags: Women, Community, Writing, Content, Internet

Write with us. Not for us—with us.

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

If you’re interested in contributing to Atta Girl, we’re interested in you contributing to Atta Girl, too. We suggest reading this first if you’d like to know what Atta Girl is. Basically, we’re women in our 30s,40s, 50s, etc. without kids, or maybe even with kids, who feel like we’re aging out of the internet. We’re no longer trending, and we’re no longer doing nothing about that. We do not Tik, we do not Tok, but we deserve fun content that speaks to us, too. We know this is long, but we’re working hard to build something truly new, and everything we’re about to say is both important and pretty different from any publications we know of.

Below are guidelines for contributing content to Atta Girl, and participating in this community as a whole — because that’s what we’re building. Not another publication full of burnout and bad behavior and other shit that your NDAs won’t let you talk about. We’re creating something new, for writers who want to be a part of it.

This Is A Collective: Atta Girl isn’t something you write for, it’s a group of writers you write with. Yes, there’s an editor (hi, I’m Shani, nice to meet you, and this is Gabrielle) because someone needs to drive this Mazda. But Atta Girl works differently than other publications you might be familiar with, because the old way isn’t working, so we’re trying this.

What The Hell Is Medium, Actually? Medium is a site where writers can write whatever they want, whenever they want. It is literally a blank page. Shani has been writing on Medium for many years, and has been supplementing her income via Medium for the last three years. There are two ways Medium works:

Free: Any writer can write anything they want on Medium for free, any time, just like a blog. People who use Medium for free do not make money on Medium. Membership: Writers can also earn money on Medium. A Medium membership is $5 per month. Anyone who pays this membership fee is also eligible to earn money on the work they publish on Medium. The $5 per month membership fee goes into the pool of every paying member on Medium, so every member is supporting and investing in the future of paid media. You have to be a member to read content written by members. The amount you earn on each piece you publish is based on how much time other Medium members spend reading it. Not all Medium members are writers, some people just like paying for the content they read because they’re good people. Medium also breaks this down in fewer words than we’ve used here.

Medium also allows users to create publications, like what we’re doing with Atta Girl. Do we want Atta Girl to be its own entity and most certainly a real thing on (recycled) paper that you can read like a 90s zine? 100% — but this is where we’re getting started.

Change The System: The old model where editors call for pitches, hundreds of writers pitch them, they write back to maybe three of those people, offer them $100 bucks for 1,000 words, pay them after six months of the author begging for money that’s already theirs, that shit isn’t us. Write what you want, when you want, on Medium. Submit it to Atta Girl. If it’s a fit, we’ll add it to our publication, and we’ll add you as a writer. All Atta Girl writers are responsible for promoting their own work. (All Atta Girl content will have a lil publication mention added to the bottom of each piece, so you’ll be promoting Atta Girl itself, AND all the writers in it, too!) Atta Girl will promote our writers’ work on our social media accounts, and eventually in a newsletter as well, but remember, we’re new — and growing, and as you’re about to read, all the work we (Shani & Gabrielle) do for Atta Girl is us volunteering our time.

If you’re a writer, Medium itself is a viable freelance revenue stream, and Atta Girl is a publication within it that thinks you’re cool. Get in here.

Every reader who comes to your work on Atta Girl via your promotion of your writing has the potential to read other articles too. We’re hoping that we can all promote this collective — i.e. count on you to promote your own work and Atta Girl — and we’ll do the same. We’re all spreading the word about content that’s important to us, and a publication we think deserves to exist—while helping everyone in this collective earn money for their writing on their own terms.

Our model hopes to combine the audiences we all have, centralize content for women who feel overlooked by the internet, and hopefully, over time, take over the planet. Cool?

We Don’t Pay You: Medium does. Atta Girl is being created as a Medium publication to empower writers to make their own money — independent of publication rates, editor correspondence frequency, and accounting department competency. Every writer on Medium, whether they contribute work to Atta Girl or simply write content on their own Medium profile, is eligible to earn money for their work.

Everyone who submits work to Atta Girl can (and in our opinion, should) be a Medium member, and therefore eligible to earn money on everything you write — regardless of whether or not its included in Atta Girl. Medium members pay $5 per month for their membership, and then ALL of their work, on Atta Girl or otherwise, is eligible to earn money, based on how much time other Medium members spend reading it. Read all the Medium tips and tricks you want ,but the better your content, the more money you make. Period. You’re paid by Medium once a month, automatically. No invoice chasing, ever.

*If you do not want to become a Medium member at $5 per month, you don’t have you! Anyone can write on Medium, and anyone can submit to Atta Girl, member or not. All it means if you’re not a $5 per month member is that your work is not eligible to earn money. You must be a member to earn money on your work.

A Real Life Example From Shani, who has been a Medium member for 2.5 years: A long time ago, I really wanted to write for a publication. Let’s call it… “The Slice.” I pitched to them for years, finally got one approved, wrote the piece, and then they edited it so heavily it sounded like someone else had written it. I couldn’t in good conscience let them publish it. So I took the piece back, published it myself on my Medium profile, and in the last two years that it’s been on Medium, I’ve earned $1,211 on it. That’s the other thing — once your work is on Medium, you can earn money on it…forever. Your work doesn’t come down unless you take it down, and it’s always eligible to earn money.

We Aren’t Paid: Those of us (Shani & Gabrielle) doing the work of running Atta Girl aren’t paid to do so, nor does Atta Girl ever earn money from your work — only you earn money from your work. We earn money the same way you do, by people reading our work. We both love to write, so this rules. If that ever changes, and Atta Girl makes money, so too will the way Atta Girl operates. But for now, we like the even playing field that Medium provides. Also it’s just nice to write what you want without needing permission from an editor who will maybe give you $50 in three months. We like individual writers being a little more in charge than that.

We know this is a lot of new stuff. I (Shani) am happy to host group Zooms to walk you though Medium and answer your questions. Email attagirlmag@gmail.com if you’d like to attend one.

We Say No Sometimes. Not all content pitched or submitted to Atta Girl will be approved and added to the publication. There is a purpose to this publication and we want all the content we run to align with that purpose. It doesn’t mean that what you want to write shouldn’t exist, it just means it’s not a fit for us. The cool thing about Medium is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to write, you can write whatever you want on your own Medium profile. If it’s a fit for our content, we’d love to add your work to our publication. We will also give you feedback as to why your content isn’t a fit for us, if we say no to it. Again, we aren’t paid to do this, so please be patient and understanding with us.

We Are Actively Anti-Racist & Actively Support LGBTQ+ Equality. And if you aren’t, if you don’t, get the hell out of here.

Submission: You may and are very encouraged to submit work to Atta Girl when you publish it on your own Medium profile. Please only submit new work. Previously published Medium work or work that is currently published elsewhere will not be approved. Well-written content that falls within the content areas we’re focused on (or new ones you tell us about that we like a lot) will be approved.

Pitching: You’re welcome to pitch ideas to attagirlmag@gmail.com before you write them, but here’s the thing to remember: Don’t pitch anything you wouldn’t write anyway if we said no. That’s how strongly you should feel about what you’re pitching. That way, even if it’s not a fit for Atta Girl, you can still write it on Medium, and still make money from your ideas, and your work.

Editing: We’ve had our voices washed out of our work before. It is not our intention to do that to anyone, ever. While we will likely suggest headline tweaks and minor adjustments to your work, they’re suggestions, not commandments, and we know how to compromise. No heavy editing of your work will take place, nor are we reviewing your content with an editor’s eye for errors (remember, we’re not paid, and most of our time has to be spent paying our rent right now), so please submit work that you’ve edited and looked over carefully. Also, honestly…typos are punk.

Jobs: There are no jobs or open roles at Atta Girl. It is a Medium publication created and currently operated by Shani Silver & Gabrielle Moss, who do so for free. Every writer here — including the two of us — has an equal stake in the success of the publication, and earns their own money for their own work. Our success is going to equal the effort of all of us coming together to create the content WE want to see, promoting it our own channels, and working together as a community to build something beautiful.

Principles: If you’re a part of the collective publishing work on Atta Girl, please understand a few things.

This is new. We’re building the wings of this space ship while we fly it. We have dreams and plans for all sorts of ways we can promote and grow an audience, and support those who submit work to Atta Girl. (Shani wants a monthly Zoom salon where we all wear glitter, etc. etc.) Patience, understanding, and open minds are all very welcome here. At the end of the day, we’re creating the content that isn’t being created for us, and that fucking rules.

We rise together. On Medium, you make money based on how much time other Medium members spend reading your work, whether it’s in Atta Girl or not. As a collective, we have the opportunity for ALL of our work to help ALL of us earn more money. (Here’s an analogy: Because Garth Brooks skyrocketed to SUCH fame in the 90s, so did country music itself, and as a result ALL country artists in the 90s made more money.) Therefore, when you’re sharing your work (and please share other people’s work too, it’s nice), please also tag @attagirlmag on Twitter and Instagram. The more successful the publication, the more successful all the writers in it will be. If this is going to work, it’s going to be because there was group effort. Again, those running Atta Girl are not paid to do so, we earn money on our writing, the same way you do. We are all in this together, and equally.

No bullies, trolls, or assholes of any kind. Any behavior or communication that resembles what we used to have to put up with at publications from The Before will not be tolerated, and we probably won’t want to include your work in Atta Girl anymore, just sayin. Report any nonsense you encounter to attagirlmag@gmail.com because we can’t see and know everything all the time. Help us out.

Atta Girl Content: This list is neither all-encompassing or static, it will evolve and I’m pretty sure we’d love to hear what YOU think should appear in a publication for women in their 30s and 40s the internet ignores. We’re not all-seeing, righteously perfect beings (nor are we working on becoming such), so it’s possible we’ve left out a really good content bracket. Perhaps yours. Send it over. Other than that, here’s what we want to write and read about.

Forms: All of ‘em! Personal essays, reported pieces, listicles, comics, poetry, you name it. Atta Girl is about a cohort of people who feel like the internet forgot about them creating the content they want to see in the world. Create what you want to see.

Topics:

fashion & style that doesn’t feel like a consolation prize for people “our age”

career advice for people who aren’t new

beauty content that doesn’t threaten us with our own decay

singlehood and relationships content that isn’t “how to be better at dating and relationships” — plenty of that online already

books & podcasts that run the damn gamut

money stuff that acknowledges the way life really IS now

health and wellness content that acknowledges women can exist without kids or a desire to lose weight

the 90s and nostalgia that brightens our goddamned day — if you remember being a teenager with AND without the internet, we’ll get along just fine

travel content beyond a backpack budget (that’s NOT done by a blogger who gets everything for free)

food content and recipes for ALL household sizes & cult grocery store shit like Publix & Wegmans

home decor content somewhere in between dorms & perfectly, expensively designed homes with brass drawer pulls

absolutely no reality TV gossipy trash content (sorry darlings, get your fix on another site, there are plenty)

party and celebration content that couldn’t give less of a shit about who we’re marrying or birthing (sober content is very welcome, too!)

socially and environmentally responsible content that doesn’t guilt or scare the shit out of us — we are not the news, we are not a nonprofit, we are not a political action organization — we are good people though, who think it’s possible to live responsibly, inclusively, and respectfully

shopping content for things for ourselves that aren’t just used for running a house with a family in it or making us better at caring for others or reminding ourselves that we get to care for ourselves too because it’s assumed we spend so much time caring for others. Jesus.

Things Atta Girl Leaves To The Rest Of The Internet: Politics, religion, gossip, zoology. Just kidding, you can totally write about zoology. Are we focusing on what you might call “the fun stuff”? Kinda! But we deserve fun stuff too, and once you’re over 35ish, that’s hard to find in a way that makes you feel current, not old. Atta Girl is not here to save the world, we’re here to talk about why Mall Madness hasn’t been made into a Netflix series yet. Cool?

Your Next Steps: Start writing, start pitching, or get in touch! You can email attagirlmag@gmail.com with a link to your Medium profile if you’d like to be added to Atta Girl as a writer (this makes submitting to Atta Girl super easy), or you can get started writing on Medium right now, and send us anything you’d like us to review for inclusion in the publication, at any time.

There has to be a place on the internet where women in their 30s and 40s aren’t invisible or somehow wrong for being who they are, for living lives customized to themselves. We want Atta Girl to be that place, and we want to build it as a community. We hope you’ll join us.

xo

Shani & Gabrielle