Writing Guidelines for Publish To Thrive
Each Essays Word Count should be 800-1200 words.
Write at an 8th-grade level to ensure readability. Stay away from $10 words and long sentences.
Write to one person at a time in the language you would use if you were talking to that person face to face. That doesn’t always mean informal language. But it does mean conversational language.
The essay must have:
1) A Tipping Point Idea (and only one idea)
2) An Illustrative and Moving Story – details matter, use “the four U’s”
* Uniqueness
* Usefulness
* Urgency
* Ultra-specific
**Specific proof that the idea is beneficial**
4) An Actionable Takeaway – when the reader is done with the essay they should have learned something and know what their next step is.
5) A Lead (your first 75 – 150 words) that follows one of the six types of leads: Secret, Story, Promise/Offer, Invitation, Problem/Solution, or Prediction.
Here are some questions to guide you when reviewing your content:
• What is the ONE core thought?
• Is it exciting? Does it convey a useful emotion?
• Does it provide a benefit to the reader – implicit or stated?
• Does it imply or state a useful takeaway?
• Is the idea well introduced?
• Could it be better introduced?
• Are there any words that can be deleted?
• Are there any clichés that can be replaced?
• Are there any weak words (especially verbs) that can be replaced with stronger ones?
Here are a few article examples
