contributor guidelines

We believe the ideal way for the website’s content to be honest, relatable, heartbreaking and amusing is for the stories to be told by you and your friends! So we are looking for stories and short pieces about platonic, non-romantic female relationships.

We’ve identified five initial areas of interest to our audience, and look to expand as we grow:

1. News and Trends

Brief articles that keep our readers up-to-date on pertinent information about friendship relationships, such as studies about friendships, psychology, trends, health benefits, etc.

2. A Friend’s Life

Essays on what it means to be a friend, ranging from a one-time experience to circumstances that have had a life-long impact.

3. Friendship 101

Advice and how-to articles that offer nuts ‘n bolts approach about forming friendships, such as: how, where and when to meet new friends; what makes a “good” friendship vs. a “challenging” friendship? Is it true that everything we needed to know about friendships we learned in kindergarten?

4. Features

Profiles and interviews with psychologists, celebrities, or experts in human behavior who reflect on the rich diversity of friendships that women share.

In addition, articles and essays grouped into special sections that provide in- depth looks at subjects of interest to women experiencing different phases of a friendship’s lifecycle, such as conflict between a friend and a spouse/partner, the heartbreak of losing a friend, etc.

5. Reviews

Thoughts and observations of books or movies (either current or classic) with a strong theme of female friendship.

Written content
News and Trends, A Friend’s Life, Friendship 101, Features, Reviews

• 300-750 words
• 1,500-2,500 words
• 750-2,000 words
• 2,000-3,000 words
• 850 words
  In addition:
• U.S. English (unless otherwise agreed on) and free of grammar, spelling or language issues
• Voice and tone are fun, friendly, informative, honest, and relatable
• Times or Times New Roman font
• 12 point
• Microsoft Word or Google doc
• Descriptive title and subtitle (written in sentence case)
• Sections are titled

Video content
Personally produced videos relaying an original story, essay or experience related to a specific aspect of female friendships.

• Up to 5 minutes long
• Original content only, your work, previously unpublished
• Video resolution at least 1080p (1920-1080) or 4K (3840×2160). If video is 1080p, a still image of at least 4 megapixels to use as a cover image.
• Descriptive title
• Meta content description

Photo content
Photo essays which characterize the unique and unwavering magnificence of female friendships.

• At least five (5) images
• All photos must be a minimum of 4 megapixels
• JPG format
• Original photography only, your work, previously unpublished
• Descriptive title and subtitle (written in sentence case)
• Include meta content description
• IMPORTANT: See Appropriate Use of Sourced Photos and Images below

APPROPRIATE USE OF SOURCED PHOTOS AND IMAGES

As you may know, photos and images must be carefully labeled to satisfy copyright protections and legal requirements. To legitimately feature a photo or images owned by another:

• You must have the legal right to publish images included with written, video, and photo content.
• All images require a caption clearly citing the source and usage rights, even if it is a photo taken or created by the author.
  o The citation should read “Photo: Photographer/ Source/Usage Rights” with a link to the usage license, i.e. “Photo: Justin Cox/Flickr/CC BY-SA 4.0”.
  o When an image is provided by the author or permission has been granted individually, the citation should read “Photo Courtesy of (Name of Provider)”.
  o When none of the above apply, the citation “Source: Studio or Provider” may be used ONLY if the image falls under fair use.
• Photo essays from a single photographer will include a single citation, not a photo by photo citation.
• We reserve the right to remove questionable images from otherwise acceptable submissions.

Submissions are reviewed approximately once a week, and the process is selective. If you do not receive a response within two weeks of submitting content, you may follow up via email. We are unable to give feedback about why a submission was not selected.

All contributor submissions will be reviewed by Project BFF, during which:

• All articles are subject to editing.
• Headlines and subheads are subject to change.
• Content may be edited for style, tone, or substance.
• Links may be added for context.
• If you do not supply your own photos (or those which you can show you have a legal right to publish), our editors will add one at their discretion

Appropriate content
Our audience is adult women (over 21), but we do not restrict access to our content. In limited cases, we may accept content that includes profanity. And we reserve the right to reject content deemed offensive or inappropriate.

Number of submissions
Each contributor may have up to five articles in the submission queue at any given time. Please do not spam us with submissions.

Date of publication
We will notify you via email when your content has been published and available for sharing.

Promotion on social media
Content will be promoted via the Project BFF social media feeds. Selected content may also be highlighted on the Project BFF site or newsletter(s).

Exclusive use for limited time
Project BFF requests that a contributed article be original and remain exclusive to our site for 4 weeks (28 calendar days). After that time, it may be reprinted in part or in full on other sites with the following provisions:

• the headline is changed
• there is a link back to the original article on Project BFF
  To repurpose or use Project BFF articles for commercial purposes, please contact us at friend (at) project-bff (dot) com

Bylines and bios
We credit all content producers and include a short bio (no more than 50 words), a link to your website and links to up to three of your social media profiles.

Linking
You may include links to your own website or blog. However, in your content you cannot advertise for or review your product(s) or service(s) or push affiliate links.

Payment
At the moment, Project BFF does not offer payment for content submissions. Anyone contributing a regular column (at least twice a month for a period of 6 months or longer) or a minimum of 5 content pieces a month (articles, videos, or photo essays) is eligible to place an advertisement for your product(s) or service(s) on Project BFF, subject to design approval. This advertisement is separate from content submissions and there can be no links between the content and the advertisements, nor references to them.

Sharing
We encourage our content producers to share and promote their pieces across their social media, linking back to the article on Project BFF.

Community participation
At the moment, content on the Project BFF site is not open for comments. Content providers are expected to respond to comments about their content on Project BFF’s social media for the first week after publication.

We can’t wait to hear from you!
Whether you are an emerging or experienced writer, photographer, or videographer we are very interested in receiving your content proposal(s).

Email us at friend (at) project-bff (dot) com

Your proposal letter should include:

• Your intended message, or takeaway, for our readers. (For example: What will they learn? How will this content change their friendships? If your content offers advice, what are specific tips to accomplish this?)
• For written content: Your story idea and estimated word count.
• For photo content: Your idea and estimated image count. If we like the idea we’ll ask to see some low-resolution images from the essay to make our decision.
• For video content: Your story idea and estimated video length.
• Links to two writing samples, videos, or photo essays, either on the topic or subject in your proposal, or of the type of content you plan to submit. (For example, an essay on any topic if your proposal includes submitting an essay, or a video on any topic if you are submitting a video idea.) If you do not have any samples to share, that’s not a problem. Just indicate that in the proposal
•  Something about you!
    o a bit of information about yourself
    o why you are the perfect person to write this piece
    o why the piece is particularly or relevant, and
    o any materials (e.g. photos, sidebar materials, etc.) you have that can be included.