For donors
Donors
Str8 Up Publishing licenses columns written with Black independent newspapers and community publications in mind. If you write sharp, honest columns, we’d like to put your work in front of the editors who decide what their papers publish. If you’d like to offer a column to publications without being paid for it, donate it through us, and we’ll offer it free. You decide column by column. To be paid for a column, you’ll need to apply separately as a paid writer (see Want to be paid for your columns? below).
Why donate a column
- Your work reaches editors. Papers browse and download columns here, so you don’t have to pitch each one.
- More papers run your work. Donate a column and we’ll offer it to publications free, so more publishers are likely to download and run it.
- A free sample of your writing. Editors who run your donated column and see how their readers respond may look for other columns under your byline, including your paid columns if you also write for us.
- You keep ownership. Your column isn’t exclusive to us or to any paper that runs it. Many papers can run the same column, and you can publish it anywhere else, before or after.
- We handle the delivery. We set up the listing, the free checkout and the delivery to papers.
- You get your own author page if you give us a byline. Your photo and your website and social media links (all optional), your bio and a list of your columns on our site, all on one page. Your byline links to it, so editors who like one column can find the rest.
Who we’re looking for
- Writers with something to say in one of our 12 categories.
- Columns of 500 to 900 words, written by you. No AI-written text.
- Writers who’ve read our Writer’s Guidelines and are ready to work within them.
What happens, step by step
- Read our Writer’s Guidelines and our Donor Agreement. The Guidelines cover length, content standards and images.
- Introduce yourself using the Donor Application below. On it you agree to our Donor Agreement. Your Donor Agreement applies to every column you donate.
- We reply by email within 10 business days. If we approve your application, we’ll send you the link and password for our Donate a Column page.
- Donate your column through that page. You’ll get a confirmation email right away.
- We review it and reply within 10 business days: we accept it, ask for changes, or decline it.
- Your column goes up on our site, free to publications, and we email you the link.
After your first column, you don’t repeat these steps. Donate each new column through the same Donate a Column page, with the same link and password (step 4). We review each one within 10 business days (step 5). If we ever change the password, we’ll email you the new one. There’s no payment and no tax paperwork for donated columns.
Want to be paid for your columns?
Donating doesn’t make you a paid writer. Paid writers apply and join separately, through our Writers page:
- Complete the Writer Application on our Writers page. You can list columns you’ve donated as your published work.
- We review it and reply by email within 10 business days.
- If we approve your application, we’ll send you the link and password for our Submit a Column page. Paid columns go through that page, not Donate a Column.
- When we accept your first paid column, you complete our Writer Onboarding form: you agree to our Writer Agreement, tell us how you want to be paid, and give us your bio, photo, website and social media again for your author page. Before your first payment, you’ll fill out a W-9 form online through our tax-filing service.
After that, you can keep donating. Send each column through the page that matches: Submit a Column for paid, Donate a Column for free. Your byline in a category stays the same whether a column is paid or donated.
A column you’ve donated stays free. It can’t be switched to a paid column later.
What to send us
- Your legal name and your email (and your phone, if you like)
- The categories you’d write in
- A few sentences about you and what you write about
- Your legal name or pen name byline, if you don’t want your column to run under the Guest Columnist byline. If you give us a byline, you also give us a short bio, and you may choose to give us a photo, your website and your social media links to show on your author page.
- Your website and social media links, if you want us to consider them when we review your application
- Confirmation that you’ve read and agree to our Donor Agreement
Questions? Email guest@thestr8up.com.