At Priceonomics, we’ve always been guided by the belief that quality content is incredibly valuable. A good idea that is properly expressed can ricochet around the Internet and reach millions of people. It can even promote your own services, which, in turn, can fund the creation of even more awesome content, if you are so inclined. We’ve built a growing company around this very blog.
There are a lot of amazing writers, thinkers, and analysts out there who are capable of creating this type of content, and obviously not all of them work at Priceonomics. If you’re one of them, we want to find a way to work with you.
So, we’re going to try something new: starting today, we’ll be accepting freelance articles on Priceonomics. Our plan is still a bit rough, but here’s the gist of it: You submit to us your original article that you think would be a good fit for Priceonomics. If it’s accepted and published, we’ll pay you $1,000.
In your submission, we ask that you follow a couple of important guidelines. First, the article has to be complete (from your perspective, at least) Second, It should be original and not be previously published elsewhere, on the Internet or otherwise.
When your article is accepted, you’ll work with our editors to get it blog-ready (expect that there will be about 5-10 more hours of work required on your end post-submission). In the beginning, we’ll aim to publish a couple of these per month. Eventually, our publication frequency could grow — but for now, we’ll start small.
Now, onto a few questions:
Can you submit an idea or a speculative pitch for a story?
No, not yet. We’re not currently equipped to deal with evaluating pitches and efficiently helping to turn them into finished works. Only people who’ve already published articles on Priceonomics can speculatively pitch an idea since these individuals already know the expectations for what an article should be like and how our editing process works.
What should the topic be?
The only guideline is this: it should bring new information into the world.
It can be an exploration of food truck economics, a long-form profile on a coffee device inventor, a data analysis of one-hit wonders, or a first-person narrative about what it’s like to fail. It can be about animals, falling in love, falling out of love, tiny houses, big houses — anything that is original and interesting. The Modern Love column in the New York Times? We love that! Dinovember? That was awesome! A study of rappers who have the most wide-ranging vocabularies? Sublime!
Is there a word length requirement?
Our typical articles are about 2,000 words, but yours can be longer or shorter. Usually, shorter pieces tend to be much more data-heavy, but feel free to use your discretion.
Should you speculatively write an article with the hopes of it being accepted?
That probably wouldn’t be a good use of your time. The acceptance rate for an article will likely be around 10%. Say it takes you 10 hours to make this article, is it really going to be worth it if there is only a 10% chance it gets accepted?
If you’ve created something you think is is great and are thinking about posting it on your personal blog or are shopping it around, consider submitting it here.
How do I submit?
To submit an article for consideration, click this link. In addition to filling out a short biographical section, you must include a link to a Google Doc (our preferred editing platform), where we can view the article.
Don’t have an article in mind, but want to stay up to date on the Priceonomics freelance program? Join our email mailing list! We’ll be periodically posting updates. Lastly, if you’d rather join our team as a full-time writer, we are hiring. You can read more about the position and how to apply here.
Ready to submit an article? Here’s the link again. We look forward to getting the chance to work with you.
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This post was written by Rohin Dhar. Follow him on Twitter here. To get occasional notifications when we write blog posts, sign up for our email list.