Our Guest Post Guidelines and Policies

If you’d like to write and submit a guest post to Men with Pens for potential publication, that’s awesome. Thanks for thinking of us!

We know guest posting can be a fantastic marketing strategy for your freelance business. It can bring you traffic, readers and clients. In fact, it’s well known that James used guest posting as a successful tactical manoeuvre, and he continues to guest post around the blogosphere today.

Before you write and submit your post for our review, here are some guidelines to boost your chances of approval.

Men with Pens Posts are Useful

Our focus is on providing readers with useful, practical, helpful, actionable information that brings readers significant benefits. Be an expert – it helps if you know what you’re talking about! Educate, teach and show people strategies to improve their freelance business and earn clients.

Have you noticed a problem in freelance business that you know how to solve? Teach people a better way of working, or present a way they can eliminate a common frustration.
Are there tips, tricks and tactics you apply that have improved your freelance business? Tell our audience and challenge them to try this new strategy for results.
Do you feel strongly about something? Explore the situation’s pros and cons, and present your opinions clearly with good, persuasive arguments for change.

Men with Pens Posts are Unique

We pride ourselves on offering content that’s different, fresh, or that presents a new angle on something that’s been said a million times before. Our audience knows that they won’t find content that’s been extensively covered on any other blog, and they expect us to bring them something new.

Be creative. There are plenty of posts on how to write a killer headline – how can you present the same in a new and different way that gets people paying attention?
Innovate. Think of ideas that haven’t been covered yet on other blogs. Say something new that hasn’t been presented before. Notice what everyone’s already doing – and figure out what they’re not doing. Zig when they zag, and shake things up a bit.
Be original and unique. Go through our archives and figure out what we haven’t written about yet – beat us to the punch. Take an opposing stance to one of our opinions. Challenge us – and challenge our readers with a fresh idea.
We like interesting posts. Give your writing some swing. Tell a story, use a great metaphor, or write some thought-provoking material. You can even write on controversial topics if you’d like.

Men with Pens Posts Are Relevant

Our blog’s focus is on freelancing and exploring better ways to do business so that our audience can improve their process or work habits and earn a decent living. It’s important to us that our posts help freelancers do better.

Make sure your post topic fits into the realm of freelancing and online business. Take time to read some recent posts in our archives to get a good feel for the type of education we provide.
Stay focused. Make sure your post is relevant to to the topic at hand and the overall arching theme of having a better freelancing business and lifestyle.
Tie your idea into freelancing. If you want to write about the latest gadget, that’s great – but make sure that you clearly convey how this gadget helps improve the chance of freelancing success, and why you feel it’s important to our audience.

Men with Pens Posts Are Well-Written

At Men with Pens, we focus on high-quality content that offers strong value for readers. Our audience relies on us to accept only the best. (You can almost say that having your post approved is a mark of prestige!)

We’re picky – really picky. Posts need to be well-written and demonstrate good command of language, grammar, punctuation, clarity, style and tone. Run your content through a spell check, and try to catch all the typos.
Edit your post well, and rewrite it a few times. It’s a good idea to set your post aside for a day or two and come back to it with fresh eyes to make it really shine.
Your post may be also be edited prior to publication for quality or clarity. Please don’t be offended if we make changes that improve your post even more.
Make sure you have a strong introduction that hooks readers and draws them in.
Use good structure and formatting. Sub-headers and bullet points or strong impact statements help our audience read your awesome content .
Have a well-rounded wrap-up. We’ve noticed that the conclusion is one of the most neglected areas of guest posts. Please end your post well and summarize with a good bang that encourages conversation and commentary.

Extra-Helpful Basics

Our audience is internet-savvy, and many already have established businesses. While a post on basics can be a nice refresher, it’s usually a smarter idea to write for an audience who’ve been in business for some time and who spend a good portion of their day online.
Include a small paragraph crediting yourself as author. Make it fun and interesting, and go ahead – include a link to your site.
We like internal linking, so please include a link or two to a relevant post on our blog. You may also link out to other relevant posts on the ‘net if you’d like – but no more than three links, please.
Affiliate links in your post are not permitted.
We’ll take care of finding a nice, relevant photo to match to your post – no need to send one in.
Submit your posts in Word .doc format, and try to use HTML markup within your content – that makes our job fast and easy, and we’ll love you for it.
Please credit all sources, assets and use common sense.
Your post must be original work that hasn’t been offered or published elsewhere.
A guest post is a gift that you give away. If your article is accepted, you grant a license for Men with Pens to be the exclusive publisher. You may republish extracts – for example, on your own site – but the article in its entirety should not appear elsewhere.
If your article is accepted, you consent to the full article, extracts, samples or examples appearing in other Men with Pens products and/or services. Don’t worry – we’ll credit you as author.

Whew – You Made It! What’s Next?

Email us and attach the guest post you’d like to submit for our review. Let us know a little about who you are, and please provide a link to your site or your blog.

We do our best to get back to you as soon as possible. Please be patient. Some days are pretty busy around here, and we can’t always reply as quickly as we’d like. But we will reply and let you know if your submission has been approved.

Want even more fantastic advice on guest posting as a marketing strategy and tips to make it a success for you? Check out our series on guest posting right here.