Write For Monster Alley
A Publication Just Born!
--
***Guidelines have been updated. Please check the publication for the new article.
So you heard about Monster Alley and want to know more about it?
This publication is super new. It doesn’t have many followers, and it won’t gain you a lot of eyes on your work — yet.
There’s a few things you may want to know (or may need to know) before getting started. Read through everything if this is the first time you’re here. For those returning to clarify things, check out the links below to jump around in the article:
- Theme/Genre/Point
- Submission Rules
- Formatting
- Submission Process
OH! And artwork… it’s mostly stock photo stuff, so I know it’s not great. Let me know if you have a good (free) resource that might work better- pm me about that one. When the pub gets bigger, I’ll shell out for something more professional. Until then, we work with what we’ve got!
What’s Going On Here?
Every publication has a theme. Even the ones that don’t tend to have a theme of not having a theme. Catchy, right? Well, Monster Alley has a theme, too, but it’s a little harder to pin down.
If I had to describe it, the theme is connective. The traffic initially will mostly come from the F2F page, where people looking for followers will stumble across the publication. From my perspective, that’s them finding the doorway.
Inside the Alley itself is a world of underground wonder!
Seriously, though, there’s no holds barred. I’ll even allow erotica, though that’s not really the theme. Monster Alley is like a lobby of sorts on Medium; it’s not the back room kind of stuff, but there’s a little bit of everything here.
That being said, this pub is 18+ for writers.
The “vision” for this publication is simple: For people to defy the echo chambers of their feeds, and expand the diversity of their tribes on Medium.
Eventually, there will be specifics amended in here, but for now it’s a Wild West sort of thing.
Guidelines And Policies
Obviously, follow Medium’s policies. No wiggle room there.
But as far as what we won’t publish here, it’ll boil down to a few things:
- Anything that supports hate, violence, or the like.
- Combining stories about minors or animals and sex or violence.
- Toxic anything (writing about it might be fine, though).
- Unedited or hard-to-understand articles.
Basically, if you don’t think there’s another publication out there would publish it, then don’t send it here. Monster Alley is inclusive, but we’re not that kind of monsters.
Again, as the pub grows this will probably get fleshed out.
Formatting
I wish I could say there’s no rules here, but… there has to be a quality control to things. Write what you want, how you want, but make sure you follow these formatting guidelines:
- Do have title, subtitle, and picture (kicker optional).
- Do give credit to image creator (this is a must).
- Do have headings and subheadings where applicable.
- Do have neatly defined paragraphs (walls of text will be rejected).
- Do have links, in-text or Medium formatted, in moderation
(depends on the length of the article). - Do have CTA/footer- please separate it with the “…” and keep it neat.
- Do submit unpublished articles OR articles less than a week old
(this may change at any point). - Don’t expect your work to be edited here
(it may happen, but don’t expect it). - Don’t plagiarize.
- Don’t forget to follow the publication yourself!
(Not required, but helpful and appreciated!)
I’ll be messing with the title, subtitle and picture to figure out what looks good for the publication page, but I’ll mostly leave the rest of the formatting up to you. Be reasonable about how you structure your stories.
No matter where you publish, how it looks is going to be important.
I reserve the right to change or add to this list at any time. The reader’s experience is important, so hopefully you will understand why these formatting rules exist.
If not, well, follow them anyway, k?
Become A Writer
Still here? Great! For now, we’re going to do things the easy way:
Respond to this article saying you want to be a writer.
I’ll check out your page or pm you through the comment if I have questions, and let you know when/if you were accepted. For now, if we’ve already commented on each others’ stories, you can assume you’ll be accepted.
It’s all about building a tribe, right?
Submitting An Article
When you’re ready to submit an article, click on the “…” at the top right and select “Add To Publication” from the drop down list.
Remember to save the selection! Don’t just click out of the list, because that won’t work!
If you’ve done everything right, the “Publish” button will change to “Submit.” Complete the process as normal to add tags and click the submit to publication button and wait for a response (or for it to publish)!
Unpublishing
As a writer, you may find better uses for your stories than to leave them here in Monster Alley. That’s great! But before you pull your stories out, hear me out: I want the first 30 days.
After it’s 30 days old, pull it and no hard feelings.
Everything about connecting on Medium revolves around activity that’s 30 days old or less, so it feels pretty reasonable to ask for that time.
If you pull it before 30 days, there’s technically nothing I can do. However, I reserve the right to reject future articles based on the assumption that the 30 day rule isn’t going to be respected.
If you NEED to break this one, but don’t want bad blood, just talk to me and we’ll work something out. No worries!
That’s it for now! Looking forward to writing with you!
~Your Accidental Monster Alley-Ally 👹
Hey, look: a newsletter.
Support writers, read without limits, and be part of the community — all for $5.
