Writers can’t help but write. Here’s why you should be writing for The Good Men Project.
Why spend money on classes, and mail off your soul for a crushing form-letter rejection, when there are other ways to develop yourself as a writer? The Good Men Project is always looking for excellent content: stories, essays, videos, and other ways of expressing oneself in a web magazine. That means we need you. Here’s what you get back.
- It’s like a free creative nonfiction writing class. Those weekly themed calls for submissions? Consider them writing prompts.
- Relationships with editors. Once you’ve written that response to the theme, or whatever it is you’ve been moved to write, you want to get feedback. That’s my job. And I love doing my job.
- Polish. Some of the work I get is exactly perfect, the way it’s submitted. I don’t have to do anything to make it a better story. But that doesn’t always happen. On the off chance this applies to your work, I’m the liaison between “good” and “great.” You want one of those.
- Publicity. That “SEO” thing you might have heard of? I do that, so you’re easy to find on Google. And it’s not just me here, ready to help you connect with readers. Once your work is published, a whole team of us leap into action, promoting your work through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
- Community. Most magazines don’t have comments sections where readers can let you know immediately how your story has affected them, and their comments land right in your email Inbox. The Good Men Project has a dedicated readership that is likely larger than that of your blog or your local literary ‘zine. Not bashing the little sites; it takes every kind to make the literary world. But if you would like a large, mainstream, progressive-leaning audience for your work, and your writing falls under our brand, then you want to be published on the GMP.
- Purpose. We’re not just some niche or hobby site. Again, not to bash the hobbyists, but we are here for something bigger. Writing for the GMP makes your words part of a community and a movement of men with many voices and beliefs, and one common mission. We are answering the question, “What does it mean to be a good man in the twenty-first century?”
- Be heard. The GMP gets about 100,000 visitors every week. In addition to being read by our extremely large audience, be heard by the small, friendly editorial staff. Writers for the site are invited to participate in conference calls with the publisher, Lisa Hickey, editor-in-chief Noah Brand, senior editors, interns, publicists, regular writers, and others who can help you. You can ask questions, make suggestions, and become known to us and your peers for your contributions.
- Get an education. Lisa Hickey knows a lot about social media. A LOT. Writing once for us, even if it makes you sweat a pint of blood, is worth the education you would get from participating in these invitation-only conference calls. Some people find writing worthwhile anyway, but if you need some more incentive, there’s one that’s worth money. Lisa can teach you how to promote your work so you reach more readers: a skill every writer in new media needs. And we’re all in new media, now.
Got a story? Email your submissions, pitches, and queries to Justin Cascio, Senior Editor, The Good Men Project, at justin@goodmenproject.com.
See the most recent calls for submissions.
—Photo credit: Drew Coffman/Flickr
About Justin Cascio
Love this.
Thank you! You’re pretty awesome, too.
Working with Justin should definitely be on this list of reasons!
I second that emotion.
The GMP has always been good to my words.
You guys are so nice! Thanks, Christian and Thomas. I considered fishing for quotes when I wrote that list but then I thought, oh, let them comment. I was prepared for someone to complain. I still am!
I love your first three reasons. And the others are pretty wonderful as well. Wonderful list of reasons.
This whole comments section is making me feel warm and fuzzy. Gift horse gratefully accepted.
Its only fair to warn potential writers that the coffee here sucks, but the break room is nice. Good vending machines and such.
Oh! Lets not forget stupid T-shirt Tuesdays! Those rock!!!
Maybe your coffee sucks, Rob, but mine is pretty darned good. The secrets are in the grind and proper bean storage. I smell a post.
What’s on your stupid T-shirt? Mine says, “I’m made of meat.”
Mine says, “I’m With Stupid” (arrow pointing down).
Its probably best for “Tacky T-Sundays.”
Ah…but our coffee will ROCK when we install the Tassimo machines.
I wish I could click the Tassimo ads and coffee would flow, as from the gods.
You know what Harlan Ellison once said about people who write for free?
“The problem with writing professionally these days is that there are too many schmucks out there who will do it for free.”
I noticed that of the 8 reasons to write for TGMP, not a single entry mentioned compensation beyond warm fuzzies and a little “free” advice. Remember that the only applause *really* worth listening to is found in a large green pile of folding money.
Are you a writer? Do you make a living at it? If you answered “yes” to both of these questions, then you already know what the markets out there look like for your genres of writing. There are paying and non-paying markets. Most of the people who are writing today aren’t making a full-time living at it, even the excellent ones. There are various kinds of business writing you could be doing for pay, but no one wants to read that stuff: business owners commission it to sell their products and services. We solicit content on a theme so that people will want to come and read it, and also to write it and be heard. It’s not a one-way venue like many magazines, and that’s a big part of our appeal. It’s easy, if you are passionate and literate, to move very quickly from reader to commenter to contributor. This cannot be said of just about any paying market. People have this idea that every writer they read who appears to be doing this for a living, is making plenty of money on their work. It isn’t always true, and seems to be less true over time. More people who write are doing it to promote their paying work: we are now marketers of ourselves. Few of us are Harlan Ellisons or Stephen Kings. More of us are Hugo Schwyzers and Lisa Hickeys, who get paid to talk to people about what they know a lot about, and who write to publicize themselves. If you’re not a writer, I don’t expect you would know all of this. Even if you are a writer, you might still not realize this. If you would like more such practical wisdom, Lisa’s Friday calls are like a business college course in becoming a writer, and you can join them if you’ve written for us even once. I was very serious about the value of #8 on my list. It’s worth a great deal more than some cynicism from that asshole, Harlan Ellison.
I remember reading a NYT piece a while back that featured talented, credentialed, established writers admitting that they could not make a living wage with their writing. Many fabulous writers turn to academia to support themselves, and lots of people make writing part of an overall platform to sell services, self-help, business advice etc. I attended one lecture given by a man who sells books telling others how to sell their books.
I do see where Ellison is coming from. If everyone who wants to write withheld work in lieu of payment, there’d be a lot less published writing, and pros like Ellison would have the field to themselves. But writers write, and most of them want to be read.
Aside from a small income from sales of my book, most of the money I’ve earned writing has come from assignments–stuff other people wanted me to write. Everything from ad copy for Honey-Baked Ham to political summary pieces on exclusively local issues.
Unless you are a person of note–say William Shatner with a piece like “The Star Trek Script I Refused”– the kind of personal essays that the GMPM solicits are not likely to get you paid anywhere.
Here’s an example of the kind of writing I am paid for, you’ll need some No-Doz to get through it.
http://www.remodelerportlandoregon.com/docs/giving%20back%2012-2007.pdf
This reminds me of the one “Success Seminar” I’ve ever attended, and the veritable flea market of book vendors that formed around it. Every one of them was selling books or tapes on how to make money … and this was how the authors were doing it. I don’t remember anyone selling a product that would enable you to make millions selling motivational materials; might have been too meta for 1997.
And I should add that writing for the Good Men Project, going all the way back to its earliest days, has been a fabulous experience.
Is there a call for submissions section in your newsletter? If so, what section should I subscribe to? Thanks
That’s a great idea: I’m going to follow up on that as a suggestion, brhau. Until then, you can find our calls for submissions on the Content Calendar, in the right sidebar of every page on the GMP. I also include the latest calls in emails we send weekly to our writers.
I recently learned that the Pubisher of the cite is a woman.
I take it you mean Lisa? Oh don’t that bother you. Thing is she is actually quite willing to hear what men have to say on a wide variety of topics even when she doesn’t agree. And she is a hell of a lot better than a lot of the women I’ve crossed paths with when it comes to talking about things from a gendered perspective.
This fact and the fact that the cite seems to post a disproportionate number of posts to gays and male viewpoints supportive of feminist issues leads me to conclude that this cite really doesn’t represent the viewpoint of most men.
I can understand this. Truthfully there have been times where I have wonder if GMP is a site for for a site for feminists with a slight twist of maleness. But in the end I do hope its the latter because it’s not like feminism is some necessary part of the conversation about men.
Therefore, I don’t feel that my viewpoints would be well received by the cite. I guess I would like to know how many “feminist’ blog cites have men as their Publisher.
If Tom Matlack’s posts (especially on feminism) have shown anything it’s that an opinion doesn’t have to be popular or even well received in order to be heard around here. You can trust me on this as I have brought up things in some of these posts that have resulted in straight arguments (and sometimes we were even civil enough to actually take the arguing into a private space instead of letting the blood fly on the open forums).
courage by all that is holy please don’t let the feminist bent around her discourage you from contributing. The ones that want men who don’t tow the line to stay silent benefit from that discouragement and the ones that actually want to listen to men (which I believe describes most of the ones that hang out here at GMP) could be missing out on a chance to connect with another actual man (instead of just quoting stats and lumping all men together).
I really hope you try your hand at contributing around here,.
While I am not much of a wordsmith, i really enjoy putting my thoughts down on paper. By writing about difficult issues in my life, I’ve also used writing for GMP as a way of having a catharsis.
I really appreciate having a forum like GMP for discussing important, and sometime very difficult, issues that deal with men’s lives.
My only question, if an article is chosen to be published, is how long is an average wait time? I understand that the editors are probably swamped with submissions and only have a limited amout of time to go through prospective articles.
Thank you for existing GMP!
Thanks for commenting, Arthur. I want to encourage new and past contributors, to write for us. Depending on which editor you work with, you should hear back within a week. Sometimes response time is longer through Submittable, but should be no longer than two weeks.
I’m sorry; was your question about acceptance (answered above) or time between acceptance and publication? That can take longer, depending on the subject matter and the editor’s backlog of accepted work. If this was your question, ask the editor who accepted your work for an idea of when your work will be published.
Hi Justin,
I wrote my last essay the submitted for review through the WordPress dashboard. I am not sure if it has been assigned to a particular editor or if it is just in a general pool for whomever has time to review it.
It has only been 8 days, but I notice that there are some articles in the “Pending” section that have been there for months.
My first article was in response to a call for submission and was accepted within a day or two; my second was an essay I put together and submitted to a specific editor and was accepted with a few days; but this 3rd one was done in the WordPress dashboard.
I’m not in any sort of rush, but I was just wondering if my article was in more of a “limbo-land” because I didn’t submit it to a specific editor.
Cheers!
Yes, that sounds right. I’ll take a look at recent submissions in Submittable and get back to you soon.
No rush Justin, I can imagine you are a busy person.
Thank you!
I will be in touch as i will love to write for GMP. This is a very informative site!