Austin Entrepreneur Network

An Experiment with Guest Posts

By Jason Cohen. When I asked recently whether you’d like to see other people guest-posting here, the response was far more positive than I expected.

But as much as you’re open to hearing new voices, you were also clear that you come here for quality content (not quantity), for entrepreneurial perspective (not product pitches), and for my taste in topics, especially “behind the scenes” admissions of agony, humiliation, and mortifying unease.

(Gee, is this therapy for me or for you? Probably both… I feel myself transforming into the Dr. Laura of bootstrapped entrepreneurs…)

So over the next few months I’m going to run a few guest posts.

Ground rules

1. I will still post every Monday, as usual.
   The goal is to present additional perspectives later in the week, not to replace my content.
2. I will favor counter-points.
   There’s no sense in a guest-post that completely I agree with — I can just write that myself! Thoughtful counter-arguments help all of us think and learn.
3. I will ignore the poster’s fame.
   I don’t care if the guest has 4 RSS subscribers or 4 New York Times best-selling books. This isn’t a popularity contest.
4. When constructive, I’ll add editor’s notes.
   Several of you said that you want me to add my perspective.

This begs the question: How does one submit a guest post if one is so inclined and one realizes that one’s writing is not actually enhanced by using legacy Germanic grammatical constructions such as referring to oneself as “oneself” instead of “me?”

Submitting a guest post

1. Have the post fully written before you contact me. That means associated pictures (with optional caption), text styling (e.g. bold or bullet points), and appropriate length and grammar. If it sounds like I’m shoving all the labor on you to make it trivial for me to post it, that’s because I’m shoving all the labor on you to make it trivial for me to post it.
2. In your email, attach a plain-Jane HTML file and separate images. No Word® or PDF™ or iWork® Pages®.
3. Most submissions will not be accepted, without explanation. I don’t need the mental anguish of telling kind folks things like “Your writing isn’t good enough.” Don’t take it to actually mean you’re not good enough, just assume your post simply not a good fit for this blog.
4. If your submission isn’t accepted, try elsewhere! This blog is my voice with occasional interludes, but there are loads of blogs driven completely by guest posts. Try one of those!

The first guest-post will go up tomorrow. Please use comments and email to keep me honest and let me know what you think.