11 Tips for Getting Published Online
I have a number of writing friends who desire to write, at least occasionally, for websites other than their own blog. I can understand this because I feel the same way. I’ve written for enough websites to see the benefits—and I don’t simply mean the ego boost that comes from writing for this or that website. I mean the benefits of learning from real editors and learning to serve different audiences with words that glorify God and edify his people. That’s our true goal, right?
Sometimes my writing friends reach out to me to ask for advice about how they can make inroads at various publications. Here are eleven strategies I’ve found helpful in my own writing as I’ve pursued publication.
Start with small, strategic articles sent to publications where you might have a good chance of being published. Perhaps you know an editor who works for a website. Ask that person if he or she would be open to reading an article from you. When I first began writing for publication, I contacted someone I had gone to seminary with who now worked for a Christian website. In truth, I had only reached out to ask for advice, but after a phone call and a few emails back and forth, our conversation turned into an opportunity to write a book review for another editor employed by the same website.
If you don’t know anyone who works for a website you’d like to write for, I’d suggest you begin submitting to websites that advertise that they are “open to submissions.” This means they expect, even hope, authors will send relevant content to their generic inbox, the one that receives the info@__ or submissions@__ email addresses. Our website, Gospel-Centered Discipleship, for example, is open to outside submissions. After you build relationships at what may be considered less popular websites, perhaps after a year or two, try to pitch articles to larger publications that appear “closed,” meaning there is no advertisement on their website that they take guest submissions.
Offer to do grunt work, like writing book reviews. Most websites have a kind of article that doesn’t get a ton of traffic but nonetheless are articles they commit to publishing regularly. Book reviews are a good example. Reviews take a lot of work and rarely get big traffic. But book reviews do have a way of helping websites partner with the kinds of authors and publishers they want to endorse.
When you reach out, offer to do this kind of work for them. Then do your best to overdeliver in quality, making sure you submit the article on time, if not early. It’s common with online publications to only get three weeks to read, write, and submit the review, so if you land a book review, be prepared to clear your writing schedule. When the website finally publishes the review, be sure to share it on your social media accounts, thanking the editor and website.
Pay a professional editor to pre-edit your articles. I brought this up in the writing group we have at Gospel-Centered Discipleship (The GCD Writers’ Guild), and one member mentioned it doesn’t seem worth it to pay an editor before you submit, especially when many, if not most websites, don’t pay for articles. But it’s my opinion that building relationships with websites and the potential of having bylines from various places around the web are certainly worth paying $30 every month or so.
In the conversation thread about paying for editors, I found it interesting that one of the best writers in the group jumped into the thread to say that she always gets her articles edited before she submits them to publications. In fact, I was recently reading a collection of essays about writing and editing, and two accomplished authors mentioned, “[We] almost always pay an editor before we even turn our books in to our agents or publishers” (Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry in What Editors Do, edited by Peter Ginna, 251). I realize most of the articles we’ll all be writing have less riding on them than book proposals and manuscripts, but my point is that if professionals still run their work through editors, how much more should those of us just getting started.
It also helps me to think of the opportunity cost if I were to submit articles lacking clarity and punch, not to mention submitting articles with silly tpyos. Additionally, the cost associated with paying professional editors becomes easier for me to justify when I reframe the cost as an investment, something that will generate a return, so to speak. And if it helps, you can even think of paying for editing as something analogous to “enrolling in a course,” that is, an opportunity to gain instruction on how to write better. Looking at it this way helps me not begrudge the cost. When money is tight, you can always try to develop relationships with your writer friends such that you all agree to look over each other’s work before you submit. This will undoubtedly be better than nothing.
Read a bunch of articles from the website before submitting. I’ll be brief on this one, simply noting that the type of article you submit should resemble the types of articles the website publishes. If your proposed article and their commonly published work don’t match, send it to a website where they do. If you can’t find a website to match, post the article on your own blog.
If the website has submission guidelines, follow them as perfectly as you can. As you develop a writing relationship with a website, you want to present yourself as someone good with words and grounded in biblical truth. But you also want to be someone with whom people enjoy working. The latter can be developed in several ways, but it begins with trying to follow the guidelines of the website. For example, when an author fails to use the proper Bible translation, especially if the website has made this clear, this kind of laziness can frustrate editors.
Follow up when you don’t hear anything, but only after a month. Editors are busy, so they might not get back to you right away. So don’t assume that just because you didn’t hear anything after a few days or a week, it’s because you’re a lousy writer who should give up all hope of ever being published. Don’t be overly dramatic. But after four weeks or so, you should send a kind email asking what they think of your article. The squeaky wheel does seem to get published more often.
Here, however, I must add a corollary: Do not send “hot takes” and other time-sensitive articles to editors who have never published your work before. I’ve learned this the hard way. You’ll end up being disappointed as you wait in publishing purgatory and the time-sensitive moment passes by without your article shared with the world.
If the website states that you should pitch ideas before submitting full articles, you should probably do that first. Last month I shared two resources about pitching articles: a detailed interview about pitches and a Writers’ Coaching Corner Video outlining the article-pitching process. But here, let me say that a pitch is a very short version of the most compelling part of your article. It will tell an editor what you want to write about, why it will benefit readers, and who you are as an author. Also, your pitch should tell editors when you can complete and submit the article.
Writing article pitches first, rather than just sending full articles, tends to let editors have more of a say in what the final article might look like, which makes them more invested in publishing the completed piece. Here’s one additional tip about pitches: have a rough draft of the article already written before you pitch so that you can quickly turn around the completed article. A long delay between an article pitch and an article submission tends to disappoint editors.
Learn from each edited article. Writing coach, Jack Hart, says, “Many publications will take a freelancer’s submissions and simply rewrite.” His point is that many publications are not interested in giving feedback and coaching authors. I’ve found this to be true. Few websites invest in their regular authors as much as those regular authors desire. “But every editor,” Hart continues, “nonetheless offers every writer a chance to move along the road to mastery. At the very least, a writer can make a word-for-word comparison of the final draft with the published version. What did the editor change, with what result? What was cut? What was lost? What was gained?”
As I think back over my own writing, I can tell you that I almost always still do this. I cut and paste the final version of the article from the website and run a comparison with what I submitted to them. Hart summarizes, “The point is to keep learning, even if you’re writing just as a sideline. Mastery flows from incremental improvements” (Jack Hart, Wordcraft, 254).
Glorifying God in our writing should entail learning from each article. Maybe we could even describe the process in terms of sanctification, shifting the focus from mere improvement in craft to improvement in character. Hannah Anderson has said something similar: “Writers should seek out the process [of writing for publication] for learning and correction as much as for exposure.”
I’ve learned the most from editors when my default posture toward editing is to say “yes” to suggested edits. This doesn’t mean you have to adopt every edit. But if an article gets, say thirty edits, I might pick only a handful of edits to request that they be left as I originally wrote them. These minor pushbacks also, I believe, help editors know they are dealing with a real writer, one who cares about the craft.
Send one strong article to a website at a time. Never send a website four or five articles at one time, especially with a mumbling email about how maybe one of the underdeveloped articles you attached might be a good fit. This approach asks editors to do the job of an author. Instead, send one strong, professionally edited article that should belong—or could belong—in the publication calendar.
Be super gracious when they tell you “No.” There’s no reason to ruin a relationship by being crabby. Learning how to take rejection (not to mention learning how to be edited), is part of the reason I suggest authors should occasionally write for more places than their own blogs. You never get rejected by your own blog, and that’s the problem. Learning to graciously manage rejection will make you a better, stronger writer.
Right now, I am on my eighth straight rejection from my favorite publication. For context, they probably published six or seven articles before they stopped publishing me, and the losing streak occurred over the course of about three years. I’ve stopped trying—for now—to submit to them, but I don’t regret trying. Neither do I think I ruined my relationship with them by trying. On their end, there still seemed to be receptivity and cordialness even as they told me no.
And when one website does decline your submission, try to make the article better and send it somewhere else as soon as possible. Then, reload with another, better article idea, and send it back to where you were rejected. I think of the testimony of Christian author Bret Lott, who has a long section about this in his book Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life (see the chapter titled “A Home, a House: On Writing and Rejection”). Much of Lott’s writing and rejections occurred in the days before email correspondence, and yet he made it his goal that after he got one rejection in the afternoon mail, he would resend the submission elsewhere by mail-time the next day.
Say “thank you” no matter what, but especially if you get published. There’s a story in the gospels about when Jesus heals ten lepers and only one returns to say thank you (Luke 17:11–19). In my experience, few authors, probably less than nine out of ten, tell the publications and editors who published their work that they appreciated the opportunity. Strive to be an author who overflows with gratitude, especially in the early stages of developing a relationship with a new website and editor.
I can’t promise that if you follow all these steps for the next five weeks that you’ll have bylines beyond your wildest dreams. In fact, I’d promise that this won’t happen. But I do suspect that if you’re serious about the craft, write a new article every month or two, and follow this advice, in just five short years you’ll be able to give me advice about how I might get published at whatever organization is currently telling me no.