Submit Content for Home Business

Guests are welcome to submit content, including articles, How Tos, Tips, photos and other types of text content about starting or managing a business or working from home for the Home Business site on About.com.

If you want to submit content to this site, please keep in mind the following:

• About.com is not an article syndication site. As such, you should not submit articles you have already submitted to such sites. With very few exceptions, content that has already been published online elsewhere will not be included for publication on this site.
• About.com has recently instituted new guidelines with regard to Guest Authors. In short, Guest Authors who have not previously contributed to this site will be required to be approved by About.com staff. As part of the approval process, Guest Authors will be required to submit 1) A current resume or CV; 2) 3 clips or samples of their work; 3) A signed Work for Hire Agreement (to be provided if your content is of interest.
• If you are a first-time contributor to About Home Business, please also include your bio information (a few sentences). If you'd like to include a photo with your bio information you are welcome to submit one or provide a link to one on your web site. You may use either your real name or a pen name, if you prefer. If you decide to use a pen name for your content submission on About.com, you must tell us your legal name so it can be included on the Work for Hire Agreement. Anonymous submissions are not accepted.
• If your article is of interest, you will be contacted and sent a Work for Hire Agreement for your review and signature. I must have the signed Work for Hire Agreement before I can submit your application to About.com's editorial staff for consideration. Guest content will not be published until you have submitted all of your materials (including your article) and have been approved by About.com staff.
• Unlike article syndication sites, your bio will not be published on the same page as your article. Instead, you will be provided with a separate guest contributor's bio page, which may include links to your web site. You can see an example of such a bio page here.
• While you are welcome to provide one or two links to your web site and an email link from your bio page, any links to your web site or other business with which you are affiliated will be removed from your content. You are welcome to link to other web sites that are relevant to your content and that add value for our readers.
• Articles should ideally be no longer than one page - about 800 to 850 words. Longer topics should be broken down into separate articles for separate publication. Your published article components will be cross-linked and those cross-links will be updated each time a component is published.
• Your content will be edited for spelling and grammar as necessary. Please proofread your content before submitting it.
• The material you submit is assumed to be your own. Plagiarism and violations of copyrights will not be tolerated.
• Please reference your sources used in any research results included in your content.
• Please remember that not all Guest Authors will be approved and not all submissions by approved Guest Authors will be published. You will be notified by email if you have been approved as a Guest Author and you will also be notified each time your content is published on About Home Business with a link to your published content. You will not receive an email notification if your content is not published. Please be patient. Several weeks or even months may elapse before your application is approved and your content is published.

By submitting your content to About Home Business, you grant About.com non-exclusive license to publish the material. Copyright ownership remains with the author, who may also use the material elsewhere.

Email Method

Submit your application materials and your content to me by email. You can email your content within the body of the email message or as a Word (doc) or text file (txt) attachment. You must be certain to add the following disclaimer text to your email message or your content will not be accepted for publication:

"I certify that I am the author or sole owner of the material I am submitting to About.com. About.com and its licensees may reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create derivative works and otherwise use the material for any purpose in any form and on any media. I agree to indemnify About.com for all damages and expenses that may be incurred in connection with the material."

If you are a first-time contributor to About Home Business, please remember to include your bio information, your resume/CV, 3 clips of your work and (optionally) a photo or link to a photo that you are willing to license to About.com for use with your content and/or your bio page.

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the About Home Business site.