Write for The Tennis Notebook
Guidelines & Submission Process
Email: the.tennis.notebook@gmail.com
Dear Tennis Enthusiast,
My name is Nikita Taparia and I am a fellow tennis enthusiast. My dad introduced me to the game during the Sampras-Agassi regime but it probably wasn't until college that I pretty much lived and breathed tennis. I am completely serious. The worldwide tennis schedule regulated my sleeping habits, which was fine. I mean, what engineering student sleeps in their four years of college anyway? As a result, I went from just watching Grand Slam finals to following every single tournament. Two years ago, my twitter officially became a way to express my emotions during every point in 140 characters or less. Last year, I started this publication on Medium to give us the opportunity to write about the elegant sport we both love. Give it a try! You may fall in love with the sport in a whole new manner.
Cheers!
What should I write?
Be creative! Make it funny. Make it dramatic. Make it personal. Include pictures, videos, sound recordings, vines, GIFs, tweets, trivia, and data visualization. Link to previous tennis notes. Don’t Forget Citations. Need ideas? Check out the Master Note List.
The Submission Process
Join Medium. You need an email, Facebook, or Twitter account.
Request to be a writer: Create a draft post, click ‘Share draft’ (top right), and copy and email the link to the.tennis.notebook at gmail dot com. Medium also let’s you import your content in case you draft it elsewhere.
Once I add you as a writer: You can submit your drafts to The Tennis Notebook under ‘Add to publication’ after hitting the “…”. Note, not all pieces can be published but if I find your writing wonderful, I may email back and forth with you about different ideas.
In addition, as you know, one of the biggest features of The Tennis Notebook are data driven stories. We have been featured on FiveThirtyEight and the WTA page. If you have pitched a data story, please have all your data and analysis organized and explained. I will provide full support on the graphics side to bring your story to life.
Editing/Publishing: We’ll communicate via notes to edit your piece for style, aesthetic, and tags. Once everything is finalized, it will be published! Note: Another article found the optimal piece is a 7 minute read. The only exception would be long reads for Courtside Chat.
Images: Use images under creative common licenses or your own images. Understand the differences between the creative common licenses and where attribution is necessary. Medium has a list of stock image resources and these do not require attribution. It is not hard to figure out if something is Creative Commons on various websites. My Flickr is also open for this publication only so let me know if you want to use an image. If you are a photographer and want to feature your pictures, send us an email! We will credit you.
License: Under Medium’s policy, you can retain all rights to your content and may remove your post at any time or you can have it under the creative commons license. If you choose to remove content, I ask you give me a little notice, so I can remove any potential links to your story in other published stories.
For more updates on Medium and new features they introduce, check out one of their publications.
I look forward to reading about tennis through your eyes! Also, check us out on Facebook!
