Behind the Scenes at the CSC: Writing A Guest Post

Ready for another peek behind the curtain at the Curvy Sewing Collective? Last time I talked about the various roles: editors, moderators, contributors, and readers! We’re 100% volunteer here, and we couldn’t do it alone!

This time I’d like to share what it’s like to write a post for the Curvy Sewing Collective. We’re always looking for posts with diverse voices and different perspectives, so I hope some of you will consider writing for us after reading this post!

Step 1: The Concept

The idea for a post can come about in a few different ways:

• Someone who has an idea and wants to write a post sends us an email. It might be a pattern review on something they’ve just sewn, a tutorial, or an opinion piece!
• A reader suggests a post, and we reach out to someone we think could write it. For example, maybe someone asks for a round-up on maternity patterns, so we ask someone who has blogged about their own experience on their personal blog.
• Someone asks for a post, and we ask them to write it! My favourite – you want a post, you write it! Maybe it’s about a journey in style experimentation, or comparing several patterns… you don’t have to be an expert to write here. (We’re not!) I think stories of a personal journey or reflection posts can be the most interesting of all.
• Contributing to a series. For ongoing series like “Sewing For My Curves” or “CSC Sewing Spaces,” we’ll either invite people or you can just email and volunteer!
• Theme Months. When we choose a theme month, we’ll start contacting regular contributors a month or two in advance to get posts lined up and take suggestions from the community on what they’d like to hear about.
• Editors’ posts. Of course, we also write our own posts – at least 1 or 2 a month each, including monthly posts rounding up community makes or new patterns.

Step 2: Email Discussions

The next step is usually to email back and forth a few times about the topic and timeline. We’ll refer you to our Contributor Guidelines, Pattern Review template, or Tutorial template, as necessary. We take turns checking the email month by month, so you may chat with Michelle, Meg, Jenny, Mary, Tanya or I… or all of us!

Log in as a contributor using the red link right at the bottom of the website. 

Step 3: Drafting the Post

The easiest way to draft a post is to log-in through WordPress. If you already have a WP account and follow the CSC, then we just change your user role to “Contributor.” If you don’t have a WP account, we’ll set one up for you.

As a contributor, you can draft your own post and add pictures, but you can’t publish. Let us know when you post is done, and we’ll have a look over it and fit it into the schedule! If you are nervous writing for a new audience or English isn’t your first language, we’re happy to give your post a thorough editing – but we always aim to keep the voice authentically yours.

If you prefer not to have a WordPress account, you can also send us the post as a word document with pictures attached in an email. We’re moving away from this method as much as possible though, because we often get technical issues and hiccups.

Draft the post right in WordPress, then let us know when it’s ready to edit and schedule to be published!

Step 4: Final Details

Your final job is to send us a few sentences for your bio, which will show up on our Contributor page and underneath the article. This is your chance to highlight your blog, social media, or any other way you’d like to connect with your fellow sewists, as well as tell readers a bit more about yourself.

As we prepare the post to be published, we’ll tag it so that it shows up in searches and appears in the right category in our header drop-down menus. We’ll pick a day to post it (usually Monday, Wednesday or Friday) and let you know when it will go live. We try to have at least a month scheduled beforehand so that we don’t (gasp!) run out of posts!

Step 5: Your Post is Live!

Once your post has been published, we hope that you’ll reply to the comments . It is hard for us to answer questions directed at you, and a lively discussion is what makes this community great. Every post goes live on the blog, IG feed, our Facebook page, and we also try to post in the Facebook community group, so questions and comments can come from all four places!

Step 6: Bask in the Glory! (And write another one?) 

Contributors like you are the only way the Curvy Sewing Collective has managed to consistently offer high-quality posts three times a week for more than two years. And while you are feeling proud of yourself for being a team player and inspiring other sewists, perhaps you’ll come up with an idea for your next post!?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments: Have I demystified the process of writing for the Curvy Sewing Collective? Do you have any questions still? I’d also love to hear from people who have already written for us: What was the experience like, and can we do anything to make it better?