ReadyWritersPen Submission Requirements and Style Guide

We strive to present high-quality content that supports and encourages writers of all types. Publishing with us ensures a global audience will read your work.

This document is designed to maintain our high standards and provide guidance as you write, edit, and submit a draft. This document is frequently updated. Please refer to the Change Log at the end for a list of changes.

We do not provide direct payments or financially commission content.

What We Publish

We publish unique, high-quality articles that focus on creativity, writing, editing, publishing, and everything in between. We’re looking for original content that helps writers improve their craft. All submissions should provide unique, researched information, and offer a creative perspective our readers can apply themselves.

Your personal experience is invaluable, and we want you to feature it extensively in your writing. However, your experience should be the frame for what readers can learn and apply in their writing. Remember that you’re writing for a global audience and not yourself.

Here are a few types of articles that we’re looking for:

• Essays exploring different writing career paths based on your experience.
• Unique or creative editing and publishing tips, tools, and methods based on your experience.
• Advice on developing ideas based on your experience.
• In-depth explanations of different writing formats and styles based on your experience.
• Unique language and grammar guides.
• First-person accounts of publishing a book and how it can translate to other writers.
• Interviews with experienced writers.
• Other creative pieces in which an audience of fellow writers can learn something new.

The common thread above is we want content based on your experience. Your experience should be identified, explained, and detailed in the introduction or throughout the content.

While we have a wide breadth of content that we accept, there are multiple types of submissions we are not interested in publishing. Avoid submitting anything that doesn’t consider the reader and what they will learn or take away from your article.

Here are a few types of articles we are not interested in publishing:

• Shortform content or anything under a 3-Minute Read.
• Standard or common advice, like writing daily or breaking grammatical rules. These articles are overwritten and do not typically meet our standards of uniqueness.
• Lists of quotes from other authors with short, personal takeaways. These submissions often provide little to no unique content or perspective.
• Articles that focus on overused sources like Stephen King’s On Writingor Neil Gaiman’sMasterClass. Yes, these are excellent sources of inspiration, but there are plenty of other options.
• Content solely focused on Medium — our publication is for writers of all types, not just those using this platform (see Rule 5c).
• Reviews of writing tools, services, or platforms that do not consider alternatives or offer comparisons. While usually well-intended, single-item reviews come across as a bit spammy (see Rule 6).
• Stories about how you made $x in x-months. While we’re excited for you, we’re not interested.
• Stories written using generative AI

Submission Rules

Opinions presented in the publication are those of the author credited on each story, who also holds the copyright to their content.

By submitting to ReadyWritersPen, you agree to comply with ALL of the rules and requirements outlined below.

Rule 1: Distribution

2: Unpublished

Submissions must be unpublished. This ensures stories gain the most exposure possible. Your submissions may be republished to or from your blog, LinkedIn, or another publication.

Rule 2: Nonfiction

Submissions must be nonfiction. We do not publish fiction or poetry.

Rule 3: Family-Friendly

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

Rule 4: Content

5a: Quality

Submissions must be unique, well-organized, and of high quality. Anything derivative, too abstract, unclear, meandering, lacking a clear purpose or takeaway, 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. This includes any title that withholds context, over-promises, exploits, is overly hyperbolic, misleads, or relies on gimmicks. Clickbaity titles and subtitles may be changed, or the submission may be rejected.

5d: Cite all sources

Every reference, claim, quote, or acknowledgment must be backed with evidence and links to a primary source. Secondary sources are acceptable only when primary sources are unavailable. Submissions making claims without citing or linking to sources will be rejected. When citing sources with references or end notes instead of inline links.

5e: Absolute free

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

5f: Generative AI

While generative AI tools (Copy.ai, Jasper, OpenAI, etc.) can benefit idea generation, they should not be used to create entire works. These pieces do not draw upon your experience and are often soulless and uninteresting. Do not submit anything written solely using a generative AI too.

When using a generative AI tool to create any portion of your submission, you must cite it like any other source. Include a disclaimer at the end of the submission indicating an AI tool was used to write a portion of the article. Submissions suspected of using generative AI without citation will be rejected.

Images using generative AI tools (Dall-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, etc.) are encouraged and must be cited following the image rules .

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 and comparisons 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 may violate the law.

Affiliate links must be disclosed by adding (affiliate link) next to the link in question or by providing an affiliate declaration in the submission. Anything containing undisclosed affiliate links may be rejected.

Stories using a link-shortening service like Bit.ly to obfuscate affiliate links will be rejected.

6b: Inline links

Please link to other content in your story. This helps enhance your story’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through discoverability. Links should be inline, like this one here, and relevant to your content. 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: Embedded links

Stories may contain a maximum of three self-promotional links.

Rule 7: Call to Action

Submissions must be free of most calls to action (CTA). A CTA is something requesting the reader do something. CTAs using section headings or quote formatting of any kind will be removed.

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 English and free of spelling, grammatical, and language issues.

 Request to Contribute

New writers must request to contribute by filling out our Writer Request Form. Filling out the form does not guarantee addition as a writer, nor does acceptance as a writer guarantee publication of submissions. Requests to contribute via email, private note, social media message, or any process other than the request form are ignored.

Each new request is handled manually and can take a week or more to process. Please be patient and wait for a confirmation email to arrive.

We receive dozens of submissions daily, and manually evaluating each one takes time. Submissions are only reviewed on weekends, so processing your request may take a week or so.

If a submission is not fit for publication, it will be rejected. In most cases, we’ll leave a private note explaining the issue. Stories are occasionally rejected without a private note if the author has disabled the feature or the violations are far too egregious to innumerate. In most cases, submissions can be reworked and resubmitted. Do not resubmit stories without correcting the indicated issues.

We reserve the right to make minor changes to your submission without notice. Possible changes include rewriting a title or subtitle, reformatting section headings and paragraphs, changing a featured image, removing undisclosed affiliate links, deleting CTAs, and more. We may make these minor changes instead of rejecting an otherwise acceptable submission. If the author does not wish minor modifications made by the editorial team, a private note should be left at the top of the submission indicating the writer would prefer the editorial team reject submissions not fit for publication. The author must make the necessary changes if the submission is rejected before re-submitting.

If a submission is ready for publication, we schedule it in our next available publishing slot. 

We focus on quality over quantity. Because of this schedule, stories are often scheduled a week or more from the day it is processed. Select Substack subscription tiers receive expedited review and publication of their submissions.