Write for Us

Thank you for your interest in writing for Capturing Your Market. Our guest posters help add variety and a fresh perspective to the site that both we and our readers appreciate.

Unfortunately we are not able to use all of the posts that are submitted. Sometimes this is because of the quality of the post, but usually it is because the post is either not relevant to our topic or audience or is too similar to a recently published post.

We love receiving guest posts that present a new topic we haven’t discussed, something that presents a different point of view or an innovative new idea.

Writer Exposure

Writing guest posts is a great way to gain exposure for your blog, impress your photography clients, or just to share something you have learned with other photographers.

Every guest writer receives:

• Short byline with primary website link at the beginning of all articles published.
• An attractive bio with avatar, website(s) and social media links at the end of every article published.
• An author page featuring your bio and all published posts.
• Exposure to a community of photographers who are eager to learn and are always looking for fresh information.

Guest Post Guidelines

To help you write a post that would be beneficial to both you and our readers we have put together the following guidelines.

Simply put, please only submit posts/ideas that are in line with the following:

• Quality similar to that of other CYM posts.
• Is available for exclusive use by CYM.
• Includes everything needed to publish the post immediately including links, link text, images and your byline.
• Is not plagiarized and does not infringe on any copyright laws.
• Includes a headline, body text and at least one image.

Exclusivity

All posts should be submitted exclusively to Capturing Your Market, unless otherwise negotiated. We ask that you do not submit posts that have either been previously published or that have been submitted to another site for consideration. While we understand that you will likely write similar posts for your own site or other sites, we strive to provide only original content for our readers so we ask that all posts be exclusive to CYM.

Topics

Most Capturing Your Market readers are professional or amateur photographers interested in growing their business and reaching the ideal client. Topics that help them solve a problem, think differently about their business or help them reach more clients are helpful.

CYM readers love how-tos and practical advice. Topics that teach readers how to do something that will help them achieve something in their business are better received than general opinion or philisophical topics.

Some topics we are especially interested in right now include:

• Photography pricing and packaging
• Brand positioning
• Email marketing
• Money management and accounting
• Sales formulas/tips

Please feel free to submit a post on a topic that is not listed above.

Submission Formatting

Posts can be submitted in plain text or Word format. To help us publish your post faster, it is helpful if you follow these points when preparing your post:

• Please include a suggested title for your post. We will, however, attempt to optimize the title for both SEO and response before publishing.
• Do not use bold in the general content of your post. Italics are acceptable when emphasis is needed.
• If submitting in plain text please wrap subheadings in <h2> tags otherwise you may bold them to make them stand out.
• Please include at least one relevant image in your post. Images should be high quality with any necessary credit included. Check out this great source for free images if needed.
• Please include all link text and links in the body of the post exactly where you want them to be. Please note that we do not publish your affiliate links in guest posts.
• Include your byline at the end of the post. Include a 1-2 sentence bio with a link to your site and your Facebook, Twitter and Google + links at the end of the byline.

Please be sure to include everything you wish to be published in the original submission.

 A note on links to your blog/blog posts…

Links to your own blog are fine when used sparingly and when the links are relevant and useful to our readers. We don’t mind promoting you, of course, but we don’t want to overwhelm readers with too many links. A high quality post will do more for promoting your blog than a post full of links.

Images

As photographers, our readers are more than a little visual. High quality, relevant images go a long way in attracting attention for your posts and are a big part of our general site layout.

Image Requirements

• Please include at least one relevant image, if possible.
• Please be sure that all images are clear and of decent quality. Our readers have a keener eye than most and will notice pixelated or blurry images.
• Ensure that the image is legally available for our use. Please do not submit images that have non-commercial restrictions or that are not under creative commons.
• Include a link to the image source as well as the artist name with all images.

Please submit images by either attaching them to your email or sending us a link to the image online or on your server (don’t worry, we will download and host them ourselves). Please do not submit images by pasting or inserting them into your document or email.

If you are at a complete loss as to what type of image to include with your post we will be happy to find one for you.

Post Length

Post quality and relevance is much more important than post length when submitting to CYM. We are much more interested in the message than we are the length.

If the post is very long, however, we may discuss creating a series or splitting the post into two parts.

Editing

Every post that is submitted to Capturing Your Market is edited. We may adjust the title, introduction, conclusion, images, subheadings and spacing in order to make the post as successful as possible.

If a submission is based on a strong idea but is not quite where we need it to be for publishing we may return it to you for revision with some suggestions. Please do not be offended if your post is edited. We are simply seeking the best possible outcome for you, our readers and our blog as a whole.

Byline

Your byline is a very important part of your guest post. We know that you have taken care to submit a strong post to CYM and we want you to receive the best possible response from our readers.

The bottom of your post will feature your Gravatar (please be sure to send us your Gravatar email address) as well as a short 1-2 sentence bio. We are happy to include a link to your primary website, RSS feed, a new product or service or pretty much anything else you would like to promote within this space.

Please be sure to include your Twitter, Facebook and Google+ links as well so our readers can connect with you further.

Thank you again for your interest in submitting a guest post to Capturing Your Market.