Content Submission Guidelines

Since its inception in 2017, The Lakeside Life magazine has been dedicated to delivering great content through our print magazine, social media platforms and/or our blog. We can accomplish this best through input from the community, and the community is always invited to participate.  

We encourage and appreciate residents, visitors, leaders and business professionals in the community who share their stories, experiences, ideas and social media posts with the audience. We believe that the community grows stronger and more cohesive as we share our collected experiences, events and lifestyle. The Lakeside Life aims to be a trusted conduit of your content.

You can submit your content online using the submission form below or by emailing Editorial. We also encourage you to review the following submission guidelines beforehand so you are aware of the agreement.

We've also created a condensed Contributor Guidelines Reference Sheet you can download.

Submissions that do not meet requirements may not be accepted for publication.

General Submission Guidelines

• The Lakeside Life accepts the following content in these type of formats: features, articles, blogs, photos, videos, infographics, graphics, art and paid advertiser AD material.
• Content should fall between 500-1500 words. Contact Editorial if much more space is needed.
• Do not submit content that is promotional in any way unless you are a paid advertiser, and that content will be marked as a paid advertisement if it does not look like a traditional AD. Content can be nearly anything from informational, instructional, educational, entertaining, insightful or procedural.
• When quoting the work of others, include attributions and credits in the body text. This should refer to the author and the publication, and a link back to the original post is always best. No need for footnotes, endnotes or reference lists unless it would help the flow of the information.  If using another's photography, just submit a release from that photographer or have them email us an approval.  
• You may link back to your website/blog/social media in the body text (in a natural, SEO-friendly way) or in your mini author bio at the end of the article.
• You should also link to outside resources in the body text in a natural, SEO-friendly way.
• Include traditional headings, subheads, writer and photographer information at the top of the piece..
• Use bullet points (when applicable) for easy reading and scanning for the audience.
• All forms of multimedia are welcome for embedding into a post.

SEO Guidelines

• Headlines should include a keyword phrase and be under 8 words long (approx. 55 characters, including spaces)
• Body text can optimally include at least one link to another The Lakeside Life story, page or business relating to the post content and keyword phrases.
• Body text can include at least one link to outside sources (blog post, video, podcast, infographic, social media link, downloadables, etc.)
• The post summary should include the post’s keyword phrase and any alternate keywords while also accurately describing the post’s content.
• The post summary should be between 150-160 characters (including spaces).

What We Need From You

• Your byline
• A short author bio (approx. 50 words or less)
• Author headshot (JPG or PNG)
• Your post (sent as a Word document or easily converted to one)
• Post summary (approx. 150-160 characters)
• Any multimedia (photos/graphics/video/audio/social media) that should be embedded into the post
• Proof of right of use for any stock images or other media used in the post
• Your contact info (for internal use only) 

Once received, Editorial will look over your submission. If accepted, you will be notified of its slated publication date.

A note on our editing process...The Lakeside Life will edit your story for grammar, spelling, style, fit and SEO, while doing our best to keep the tone and personality of the piece fully intact. We’ll try to work with the author on any edits, but cannot make promises they’ll get final editorial control.  We generally re-write headlines and subheads to conform with our style guide and SEO best practices. We don’t condone or actively practice censorship, but The Lakeside Life reserves the right to exercise editorial judgement for tone to match with our target audience and company goals.

Suggestions

• You don’t need to be an expert to be accepted for content. We accept posts from a diverse group of people with varying background and experiences. You just need a fresh or interesting subject, thought or idea for a post and a computer to write it on. Content is all reviewed based on its merit, not the byline or full expertise.  The lake lifestyle is casual, and the tone of many of the best articles fits that niche.
• Our primary target audience are lake area business owners, residents, and visitors. Keep this in mind when crafting your content - casual works well.
• We’re interested in any lake-relative lifestyle topic that our target audience would find useful and interesting. 
• We love embedded multimedia, so feel free to get creative with your visuals.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact Editorial.

Contributor Agreement

By submitting your content to The Lakeside Life you’re agreeing to the following:

• That The Lakeside Life has exclusivity rights to the content being submitted. Submitted content cannot be reposted onto other formats, platforms or publications until 30 days after it goes live on The Lakeside Life formats, platforms or publications and should have alternate headlines and subheads, and/or link back to the original release from our sites.
• That you share the material from The Lakeside Life to your social media accounts, newsletters, blog, etc., linking back to the original content.
• That you have copyright permission to use any stock photos, audio, music, graphics, etc. embedded in the material.
• The content is original, not plagiarized, and uses proper citations for works quoted or referrals used. 
• Work submitted may be repurposed for other project needs such as generated PDF downloadable handbooks, newsletters, guides, digital, print, and other media types.
• Certain material may also be selected for cross-posting on our sister sites and we do tag back credits always for your convenience.

In return, The Lakeside Life promises the following:

• To give you full credit for the content you created, with links back to your designated site(s)/platform.
• To promote your content on The Lakeside Life platforms that potentially goes out to millions of readers over time. 
• To promote your content on The Lakeside Life’s social media accounts, including but not withstanding – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Houzz, etc. – with obvious mentions/tags to your platforms.

Ready to get started? If you agree to the above, please click here to submit your story!