Southwest Ohio Parent is always looking for talented, experienced freelance writers to enhance our print magazine and digital spaces. If you think you can help us do that, please read on.
Digital Contributor Guidelines
Do you love getting out and about in Southwest Ohio to experience all of the family-friendly fun our area has to offer? Do you love sharing photos of your experiences on social media? A digital contributor spot might be perfect for you. As a Southwest Ohio digital contributor you will be covering events and activities around either the greater Cincinnati or Dayton areas to generate content for ohparent.com and our social channels.
These assignments will include community events, advanced previews, behind-the-scenes
tours, and more. Most event coverage opportunities will focus on family-friendly,
community activities and often your family will be invited to join you. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a digital contributor, email [email protected].
Print Writer Guidelines
Although we welcome queries and submissions, our print magazine content is based primarily on the editorial calendar we have in place for the year. View this calendar to see the article topics we have planned for each month’s issue.
Our magazine is dedicated to being a local resource for our community, so we are interested in what Cincinnati, Dayton and surrounding area experts and parents have to say. On occasion we will use material that is meant for a national audience, but our primary goal is to provide our readers with a local angle that is pertinent to them.
If you wish to be considered as one of our freelance writers, please send an email to our editor, Nicole Sipe, at [email protected] outlining your interest and experience along with several samples of your work.
General Tips
There are several elements to writing a feature article that give us the best response among our readers. Here are several points to consider when crafting your stories.
- Tell people something they don’t already know. If a parent picks up one of our magazines, they are probably reading other parenting publications as well. We want our readers to feel that when they choose SW Ohio Parent Magazine, they will find something new, interesting or particularly helpful to them. Try to go beyond the obvious angle of a story to get a new perspective.
- Get quality information from sources. Think carefully in advance about the questions you plan to ask sources so you can elicit the most interesting answers from them. For a full length feature (unless it’s a profile piece), interviewing multiple sources is expected along with relevant research included on the topic.
- Be objective. Be careful about unintentionally inserting your own opinion as fact. We want to make it clear in our articles that our information comes from knowledgeable experts and sources. Your role is as objective interviewer. Avoid personal anecdotes and the use of “I” in your writing.
- Be specific. Rather than providing generalized tips or advice, strive to make your information something readers can really use. Give them a concrete “take away” from reading your piece.
- Stay on track. Keep your thoughts organized along a theme. Break up big blocks of information with sub heads to make clear transitions. Using sub heads also makes articles much easier to read when they appear online where users will click away if they can’t find what they want quickly.
- Have an interesting introduction and provide compelling conclusion. If the introduction is lackluster, readers won’t continue. Think of something that will grab their attention. For the conclusion, tie your thoughts together to the beginning of your piece. Answer the question or address the issue you are talking about. Make sure your ending provides some sort of impact rather than just giving a synopsis of what you already wrote.
Payment
Writers are paid based on the assigned word count for articles. Payment is made upon publication of the article in the magazine. Checks are typically sent within the first week of the month of publication. Freelancers should submit an invoice (within an email) that includes their name, address, phone number, social security number, the name of the magazine, the issue month, the name of the story, the assigned word count and per word fee.
Thank you for your interest in writing for us! We look forward to hearing from you!