For donors

Donor Agreement

Version October 11, 2026

This Donor Agreement is between you (the “donor”) and Golden Touch Publishing, LLC, doing business as Str8 Up Publishing (“Str8 Up,” “we” or “us”). It covers every column you donate to Str8 Up. You agree to it once, on our Donor Application, by checking the agreement box and submitting the form. If you want to be paid for your columns, apply through the Writer Application on our Writers page.

Our Writer’s Guidelines explain how we work day to day. If anything in the Guidelines ever conflicts with this Agreement, this Agreement controls.

1. You’re donating, and you keep ownership

You’re giving your columns to Str8 Up free of charge. We don’t pay for or sell donated columns, so you won’t receive royalties or tax forms. A donated column stays free: it can’t be switched to a paid column later. You keep ownership of every column you donate, and none of them is exclusive to Str8 Up: you may publish them anywhere else, before or after they appear with us.

We review your Donor Application and reply by email within 10 business days. If we decline your Donor Application, this Agreement ends. We review every column you donate before we use it, and we reply by email within 10 business days, whether or not we accept it. We may decline any application or any column. Our decision is final and we don’t have to give a reason for our decision. If we decline a column, you keep all rights to it, and we don’t publish it or use it for anything else.

2. Your byline, bio, photo and links

Your byline is optional. If you give one, you also give us a bio. Your photo, website and social media are optional. Here’s how we use each one.

Your byline

Your byline is the name your column runs under: your legal name or a pen name (we place some restrictions on pen names). You give us your byline on your Donor Application, and you choose the byline for each column when you donate it. If you have a byline, we create an author page for you when we publish your first column under it. It shows your byline, your bio, your photo (if you provide one), the website and social media you choose to show there, and your columns.

If you don’t give us a byline

Before you decide, please remember that you may use a pen name as your byline. If you don’t give us a byline (your legal name or a pen name), we will run your column with “Guest Columnist” as your byline. We don’t create an author page for you as a Guest Columnist or show your website or social media accounts with your column on our site or in the download file for your column if your column runs under the Guest Columnist byline. You may donate some columns under your legal name or pen name byline and others under Guest Columnist.

Your bio

If you have a byline, you give us a short bio (up to 600 characters). We add it to the end of every column that runs under that byline, so it appears wherever the column runs, in print and online. It also appears on your author page. Each column keeps the bio it was downloaded with, even if you update your bio later. Your bio isn’t counted in your column’s word count. Columns that run as Guest Columnist have no bio.

Your photo

Your photo can be a photo of you or a drawing, avatar or other image that represents you, as long as you have the right to use it. No AI-generated images that look like real photos. If you provide a photo, we show it only on your author page. Your photo is not included in the download file, and it will not appear with your column when a publication publishes your column in print or on its website. If you don’t give us a byline, you won’t have an author page and you cannot provide a photo or image.

Your website and social media

Your website and social media appear only where you want them to, and only if you have a byline. They appear on your author page only if you choose to show your website and social media on your author page when you complete our Donor Application or, for a new pen name, when you donate its first column. They appear with a column you donate only if you choose to do so when you donate that column. If you choose to show your website and social media with the column you donate, your website and up to three social media accounts will be printed on one line after your bio, with the column on our site and in the download file. Your website and social media accounts must be your own. They may not promote any other byline you write under for Str8 Up. We check that your website opens and that your website and account names meet our content standards. To change the website or social media printed with a column already on our site, email guest@thestr8up.com. We update the column for future downloads. Copies already downloaded keep the links they came with. Don’t put your own website or social media in the body of a column. Links in a column are only for sources or references.

To update your bio, photo, or the website and social media on your author page, email guest@thestr8up.com.

Pen names

Pen names are welcome. Your pen name can’t:

• be the name of a public figure, or of anyone readers could mistake for the author;
• borrow credibility you don’t have, such as a name that suggests you’re an expert, an official, or a spokesperson for a group or office;
• include a title or credential you don’t hold (Dr., Rev., Judge, and so on);
• be a brand name;
• be the name of an organization;
• be offensive.

We approve every pen name before your first column under it runs. In each category, you may write under no more than two bylines: one of your own (your legal name or a pen name, not both), which covers everything you write for us in that category, paid or donated, and the Guest Columnist byline, which is for donated columns only. If you write under more than one byline, including Guest Columnist, your columns under one byline may not quote, respond to or promote your own columns under another. To use a new pen name, enter it as the byline when you donate a column and check “This is a new pen name.” Give us a bio for that pen name and, if you like, a photo. Your new pen name’s bio may not name or point to any other byline you write under. Each pen name may have its own website and social media accounts. You can choose to show the website and social media you enter with that column on the new pen name’s author page. Columns already downloaded keep the byline they were downloaded with.

3. Your promises

For every column you donate, you promise that:

• you wrote it yourself. Spell-check, grammar tools and research help are fine; text written by AI is not;
• it’s your own original work, not plagiarized, and you own the rights to it;
• you haven’t given anyone else exclusive rights to it;
• to the best of your knowledge, it’s accurate and doesn’t defame anyone;
• it meets the content standards in our Writer’s Guidelines and complies with their rules on AI, images, length and format;
• you own every image you send, or have permission that lets publications run it with your column; every AI image is credited “AI-generated image,” and none of your AI images are photorealistic;

• your pen name, if you use one, follows the pen-name rules in section 2.

Taking a column down doesn’t end these promises. Ending this Agreement doesn’t end them either. They still apply to every copy publications downloaded before then.

4. Accuracy, corrections and complaints

Accuracy is your responsibility. We don’t fact-check columns or verify sources, though we may decline a column that appears to contain false statements about real people. Publications should not contact you directly. If a publication or anyone else asks for a correction or complains about your column, it comes to us at editor@thestr8up.com. We’ll tell you. We may take the column down until the complaint is resolved. We may take the column down as a result of the complaint. You agree to cooperate with us in responding to the complaint.

5. What you let us do with it

For each column we accept, you give Str8 Up a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to:

• post your column in full on our website and feature it on our home page;
• offer it free to newspapers, newsletters and other publications, who may run it on the same terms as a paid column (section 6 and our Terms of Service);

• format it for our house style and deliver it as a Word file, with your byline, your bio (if you have one) and any website and social media you chose for it, to publications that download it from our site;
• use the byline, headline and short excerpts of your columns to promote your columns and Str8 Up.

We won’t change your words without your OK. We may format your column or ask you for changes. Your summary is different. We may edit or rewrite it to fit our house style and to make sure it matches your column.

6. What publications may do with it

Each publication that downloads your column may:

• run it once in one print edition, post it once on its website, and keep it in its archive;
• rewrite the headline to fit its layout as long as the change does not alter the intent or meaning of the headline in the file they downloaded, fix typos, fix clear grammatical errors and fit it to its layout.

Publications may not cut or shorten your column. Publications may not otherwise change, add to or rearrange your words. Publications must credit you with the byline in the file they downloaded, print the line “Distributed by Str8 Up Publishing” as the last line, after your bio, if any, and may never present your column as their own or anyone else’s. They may not resell your column or share it with other publications, and may not sell or license it to AI companies or use it to train their own AI tools.

If you think a publication has broken these terms, for example by running your column more than once, on a site that didn’t download it from us, or without the “Distributed by Str8 Up Publishing” line, email the link or details to editor@thestr8up.com. We’ll follow up with the publication. You’re not required to watch for this or contact the publication.

7. Taking it down

You may ask us to take any column down at any time, for any reason or no reason, by emailing guest@thestr8up.com, and we’ll remove it from our site within 2 business days. We may also take any column down at any time. Donated columns stay on our site for a limited time, set by us. We don’t archive donated columns. When a donated column comes down, it comes off our site completely. Taking a column down removes it from our site only. Publications that already downloaded the column may run it under the free-column terms, and may keep what they’ve printed or posted in their print and online archives in accordance with their archive policies.

8. Ending this Agreement

Either of us may end this Agreement at any time by email, without giving a reason. To end it, email guest@thestr8up.com. When it ends, we stop accepting your columns, take your columns down within 2 business days and remove your author page. Publications that already downloaded a column may run it under the free-column terms, and may keep what they’ve printed or posted in their print and online archives in accordance with their archive policies.

9. Your information

We use the information you give us to review your columns, publish them, offer them free to publications and, if you have a byline, build your author page. Our Privacy Policy explains the rest.

10. Changes to this Agreement

If we update this Agreement, we’ll email you the new version. Columns you have donated stay under the version in effect when you donated them.

Questions

Email guest@thestr8up.com if you have questions.