We adhere to certain standards of publication, and hold commensurate expectations of our contributors. If you are producing work for the site, please read the below. We reserve the right to take down, append a correction to, or reject post-commission but prior to publication, any work that breaches these standards.
Conflicts
You should not review a book if you are close friends with the author, or have blurbed it, or are thanked prominently in the acknowledgements. You should not review a book if you have a close connection to the publisher, for example if they employ or are currently publishing you. It is acceptable to mention a book that falls into the above categories in a broader context, or to recommend it in a list, but with due disclosure.
Diligence
If you review a book, we expect you to read it. We also expect you to familiarize yourself with the author’s biography and other works. We expect you to research topics that you write on, and provide sourcing information for statements of fact. For profiles, we expect you to interview the subject, familiarize yourself with their output and talk to at least one other individual about them. For all articles, we expect facts to be accurate and verifiable.
Plagiarism
You should not plagiarize work in any form, or infringe on any individual or entity’s intellectual property rights. Quotations must be clearly marked and credited.
Self-plagiarism
Work written for us should be original, and not have appeared elsewhere, including in a modified form that shares major similarities in content and form. Note that we do publish book excerpts, and consider article re-posts, but prefer it when the original publisher contacts us first, unless they are no longer extant.
Contributor agreement
Contributors to the site are expected to deliver the work they have been commissioned for, in acceptable form and timely fashion, according to below understandings:
Deadlines
Work should be delivered on or by the agreed deadline, within range of the agreed word count. Extensions are generally forthcoming: just ask! But please ask in good time.
Revisions
Contributors should make themselves available for multiple rounds of revisions after submitting their work, before giving final approval for the finished form.
Withdrawals
After a piece is submitted, it should not be withdrawn. On closing edits, we will endeavour to publish it without too long a delay, and to indicate when that will be.
Payment
The agreed fee will be paid on publication, within five business days but generally on the day of publication, provided that the contributor has successfully onboarded into our payments platform (Gusto) first.
Kill fees
If a submitted work is commissioned but not published, we will pay a kill fee of one third of the agreed rate (rounded up to five). If a commissioned work is not submitted, partially submitted, diverges significantly from the commission or breaches our basic standards as above, then there will be no kill fee.
Expenses
We do not re-imburse for incurred expenses, unless otherwise agreed. We can however arrange for publishers to send review copies of books, digital or hard copy, or send other helpful resources.
Competition
If you are commissioned to produce a work with us, you should not offer it or a modified version of it to other publications. For subsequent re-use at least one month after publication, please see below.
Copyright
Contributors retain copyright for their own work, but agree not to withdraw permission for its distribution after publication, and to request permission for re-use. We will request permission for any re-publication requests beyond our website.
General notes
All contributors are independent contractors, not employees. They are not entitled to benefits, and are responsible for reporting income to applicable government agencies. We do not carry liability on behalf of contributors.