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Submission Policies and Guidelines

grey cat with typewriter, books, blue wall

Going Concern Guest Post Guidelines

1. Length: The ideal length for a post is between 700-800 words. 500-word minimum, 1,000-word maximum. Please no double-space or 12 pt. Comic Sans font. Papyrus accepted on a limited basis and only if you do it as a joke.

2. Topics: Keep it real and/or be cutting-edge. Make sure there’s something in it for the reader. If the natural response to your headline is, “So what?” then you’re doing it wrong. Yes, we are aware we publish “so what” articles all the time. Rules for thee.

Here are some sample headlines to give you an idea of what we’re looking for:

  • Worst Day of My Accounting Career = good.
  • 5 Ethically Dubious Ways You Can Beat the Busy Season Blues = good
  • KPMG Did = not so good, fails the “so what” test
  • Some Technical Practice Crap No One Here Cares About = LOL absolutely not
  • North Dakota Appoints New Junior Undersecretary for Agricultural Finance = don’t even submit. (Apologies to any North Dakotans. Nothing personal.)

3. More About Topics: Some topics that we like: accounting salaries and compensation, exit opportunities for public accountants, first-hand accounts of your experience in practice. Some topics we do not like: anything that refers to IRS circulars, anything overly technical of interest only to partners with nothing better to do. Not sure if your topic is a good fit? Need some help with topic ideas? Email us and we’ll talk: [email protected].

4. Sponsored Links: If an article includes a sales lead hook and/or sales links please review our media kit for cost. Liz Branch, COO, Going Concern will be your sponsored content contact and we will work together to create something awesome. Sponsored links are not accepted in guest posts.

5. Tone: All content should fit the Going Concern attitude. Hint: informality, sarcasm, cat pictures, and barely applicable analogies to nerd culture are always welcome–but be sure you have something important to say amidst all the sass.

6. Submission details:

  • Draft your final article in Google Docs, make sure to include your byline. Name, title, experience, credentials, email address, and anything else you’d like included. Otherwise, we’ll totally make something up.
  • Include a proposed headline and any images. If you don’t have images, that’s OK. We’ll find some wildly inappropriate stock photos for you.
  • After you do a grammar/spell check, please share your article via Google Docs to [email protected]. If you can’t figure out Google Docs, use your aol.com email account to send the doc as a Word attachment or better yet a PDF.
  • GC reserves the right to decline or accept any proposed article and to edit content. We will inform you of any major changes prior to the proposed publication.
  • Don’t insult our intelligence by submitting content that has no business being on Going Concern. We don’t care about your side biz or self-promotion. Ain’t gonna happen. Backlinks are allowed by editor discretion and only in moderation. We reserve the right to make these links no follow as guest posting is about providing value to our readers, not advancing your SEO goals on the back of our Google juice.
  • NO, NO, NO–we do NOT republish articles that have already appeared or been submitted elsewhere.
  • After you submit, you’ll receive an acknowledgment email and (hopefully) a CONGRATS email with the slated publication date from a member of our editorial team. If you don’t hear from us, please don’t blow-up our emails…it’s not you, it’s us. Just kidding, it’s probably you. Follow the above guidelines and you’ll be hearing from us. If you submit an article that breaks every single guideline laid out above not only will we ignore you, we’ll probably make fun of you amongst ourselves.

7. Obligatory legal stuff:

  • You agree to only submit content for which you have the copyright or other specific permission to distribute electronically.
  • You agree to grant Going Concern, a division of Accountingfly, the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, translate, distribute, and display the writing (in whole or part) on the Going Concern blog. Any/all uses will retain the writer’s name and the appropriate terms of copyright.
  • You agree that you will not libel, defame, or make false statements about anyone (only staff writers have that privilege). You also agree that you will not make stuff up, make false statements, harass anyone, steal or “borrow” anyone else’s content, break any of the EU’s weird interweb rules, or include anything else illegal or inappropriate. You agree to bear full and exclusive responsibility for your content and further agree to indemnify and hold harmless Going Concern, its affiliated and related companies, and all Going Concern employees, contractors, and associated and affiliated parties against any and all loss, liability, claim, damage and expense whatsoever (including, but not limited to, any and all expenses whatsoever reasonably incurred in investigating, preparing or defending against any litigation commenced or threatened or any claim whatsoever) arising from or related to any and all content that you submit to Going Concern.