Answering Some Questions

A PW Q&A

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I’ve received a few questions that are not highlighted or made clear in my Submissions Guidelines, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to answer them.

1. Do I have to use one of PW’s prompts to submit work here? Nope! And I explained how things work here at PW in this article PW FYI.
2. Can I publish work here using someone else’s prompts? Yes! PW is all about prompts. Mine, yours, or someone else’s. I also covered this in the article PW FYI.
3. Can I added CTAs to my stories? A CTA is a Call To Action. Most of these include redirects to non-Medium websites like your off-Medium blog, Amazon pages if you have a book to sell and the lovely ko.fi.com if you want to support a writer by buying them a coffee. So the answer to this is YES, so long as you state it is a CTA (like Visit My Blog or I have a book on Amazon — something to that effect). Do not try to fool readers into going to dangerous off-Medium sites as a ruse. You will be removed as a writer for doing so and turned into Medium. You may include at least two CTAs at the end of your work. If you want to promote a charity or a contest, you can also include a link to those. Please do not abuse this. Two means Two.
4. Do I need to add the copyright symbol, year and my name at the end of my work? No. You don’t have to and many publications prefer that you don’t. However, I have been the victim of online theft because I didn’t copyright my work. This was back in the late 90s when the internet was new and kinks hadn’t been worked out. So as a general rule now, I copyright all of my work even though I don’t have to do it. Here is a great article by Kevin Buddaeus on Copyright Violations and Plagiarism.
5. I write bi/multilingual pieces, can I post my work here? Originally, I had this in my Submission Guidelines, but I was worried it would put too much pressure/work on writers. However, if you want to post your pieces here on PW, please translate from your native language to English in the same piece of work.

If you have a question that has not be answered in the Submission Guidelines or this Q& A, please ask in the comment section of this piece and I will do my best to answer them.

Ravyne Hawke, Editor