Thanks for your interest in contributing content to Solopreneur Life. You’ll work with our founder, Kathryn Aragon, to produce content that supports the solopreneur and freelancer community.
Who Are You Writing For?
Solopreneur Life is a resource for people who own and operate their own business. In every article and resource should help solopreneurs and freelancers uplevel their skills, build their business, and enjoy the Solopreneur Life.
We aim to give them actionable advice and tips from solos for solos, including strategies, guides, case studies, and success stories.
Current List of Desired Topics
- Getting clients
- Prospecting
- Email marketing
- Networking
- Content marketing
- Social media
- Growth strategies
- Sales
- Client care
- Building and optimizing a website
My Criteria When Considering an Idea
When you pitch an idea, I evaluate it against 3 criteria:
- It’s optimized for a keyword with a good search volume. If the volume is high (and the search intent is right), we know there’s an interest in the topic.
- We don’t already rank well for that topic.
- It’s 100% geared to helping solopreneurs gain new skills or improve their game.
If the topic doesn’t have a lot of search volume, I may still consider it, especially if it’s a new trend, an important discussion, or a success story that will help solopreneurs succeed. Here, instead of traffic, the criteria is engagement.
When coming up with ideas for us, please look for gaps in our coverage, new slants to an existing idea, or up-and-coming topics our audience wants more information on.
Format & Structure Guidelines
Your post should be no shorter than 1,000 words. Ideally, it should be 1,250+ words.
There’s no cap on length. It often takes 2,000 words for an article to rank well in search, and that’s the goal.
Always end your post with 3–5 KEY TAKEAWAYS or APPLICATION.
Short sentences, short paragraphs. Half of our audience consumes content on mobile, so long paragraphs are no longer acceptable.
Use a logical structure to present your information or tell your story. Good formats are lists, how-to steps, or a “what-why-how” presentation. Always include:
- Short, clear intro: Tell us what you’re going to tell us and (if necessary) why it matters.
- First sub-header (H2) should always reflect the most important topical idea.
- Second sub-headers (and so on) should reflect ideas of lesser importance.
- Actionable conclusion: Summarize your points, tell us what to do next, and the benefit of doing so.
Working with Me
When you have an idea for an article, shoot me an email to tell me about it. I’ll let you know if the idea will work for us, and I’ll help you refine it or find another idea if it isn’t a fit. Email should be:
- To: Kathryn Aragon ([email protected])
- Subject: Article idea for Solopreneur Life
When we agree on a title/topic, please give me the date you think you can have the article ready for my review. This helps me plan my calendar.
Submit your draft as a Google Doc. Give me editing permissions before sharing the doc. Set Sharing to:
- On – Anyone with the link
- Access – Can edit
Title the Google Doc with your name first, then the title of the article:
- Your Name – The Title of the Doc
I like to include an “About the Author” blurb below the article. In your doc, include a 2-3 sentence bio and your LinkedIn profile.
I’ll make my edits in the Doc you send me.
I’ll try to let you know when the article is scheduled and when it goes live, but I may be busy and forget. Feel free to follow up with me to check on the status.
Help us promote the article, so it gets lots of traction. Some ideas:
- Share it in social media
- Include it in your newsletter
- Link to it in other articles you write
Be Aware
Solopreneur Life reserves full editorial control and will edit or tweak your article as we see fit. These tweaks include anything from removing too much promotion, to optimizing for SEO, to rewriting sections for clarity or readability. Be prepared for edits both small and large.
If I ask for edits or changes, please try to get them done within a few days. Otherwise, your article may lose its place in the editorial workflow.
Your article may be rejected if it doesn’t meet our quality standards, editorial needs, or business objectives. Please understand that acceptance of your pitch is no guarantee that your article will be published.
We may update/rewrite your article if it becomes outdated or fails to rank well. Our goal with all our content is to meet the needs of solopreneurs. We measure our success through traffic and engagement. If an article fails to perform, it will be updated and/or deleted.
Be aware, if someone else updates your article or if your article is replaced by another article on the same topic, we will change the byline. The best way to avoid this is to help me keep your article updated and performing well.
Set Up Your Gravatar
To have your headshot show up on your author profile, you need to set up a Gravatar profile with your business email. Here’s how to set that up.
- Go to Gravatar.com
- Click on the big, blue “Create Your Own Gravatar” button.
- Either create a new WordPress.com account or sign in to your existing one.
- Add your email address and then upload the headshot you want to be associated with your email.
- That’s it!