Submission guidelines

Please read all the guidelines before submitting an article.

The Mindful Word publishes articles that explore the many facets of mindful living, encouraging readers to push their boundaries and grow both personally and collectively. Specific article topics include mindfulness practice, meditation, personal growth, contemplations and conscious media reviews. Read some articles to learn more about the kind of articles we publish.

Submission requirements – We only accept original articles written exclusively for The Mindful Word (as in they have never appeared anywhere on the Internet, not even a personal blog or social media). We do not publish guest posts by writers just wanting to promote themselves or their services. However, if you genuinely want to write about a topic that we cover, feel free to submit your story, while remembering to closely follow our submission guidelines.

Any article that does not follow the guidelines will be automatically deleted. You’ll have the opportunity to add a bio at the end of your article, where you can add a link to your website and social media. Please note that we will no longer link to essay-writing services of any kind in the author bio.

What we’re looking for – Listed below are the content formats we’re most interested in. To get a feel for the specific topics we publish, we encourage you to read a few articles before submitting.

»  features  – creative nonfiction, investigative journalism
»  service articles – how-to, lists, round-ups
»  interviews – text and/or video
»  reviews – conscious media (released within the last year)
»  essays – personal, not academic
»  videos – accompanied by a text introduction
»  fiction – related to any of the topics we cover, with a positive theme(s)
»  poetry – any form or genre (three or more poems at once preferred)
»  editorial cartoons – related to spirituality, society, culture (attach 72 DPI JPGs)
»  photo essays – related to spirituality, society, culture (attach 72 DPI JPGs)

Word count – We don’t have any set limit on article length, although we ask for a minimum of 1,000 words unless you’re submitting poetry or a review. The longer an article is the less likely it will get read to the end, but the shorter it is the less depth it provides the reader. We typically find that 1,000 to 2,000 words is a good length for most articles.

Images – If you include images with your articles, please ensure they include accreditation. If they are from free image sites, please include the link to each image. All images must be accredited or they will not be used.

User profile – We create a User Profile for all our writers so the following information must be submitted with your article. Without this information, your article will not be sent to an editor:

  • A short bio of about 50 words to be included at the end of your article
  • A bio picture (preferably a head-shot)
  • (optional) Links to your social media accounts and/or a website

Byline – Want to get exposure to an audience of over 100,000 monthly views? Since we’re a non-profit, volunteer-run media organization we can’t pay writers so we’re happy to help you get exposure by adding your biographical information, website and social media links. Note that we only accept links in the bio, so do not put any links in the body of the article.  Any links inserted in the body of the article will be removed. Please keep your bio to a maximum of 50 words. 

Social media – We’ll do our best to further promote your piece across our social networks. If you can also share it across your own social networks that would be great since the more it gets shared the more likely it will be to make it into our newsletter.

Simultaneous submissions – We accept simultaneous submissions, but we ask that you inform us in your initial submission letter if you’ve submitted simultaneously and notify us if your submission has been accepted for publication elsewhere.

Licensing – We publish submissions under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, which means your articles will have a greater reach since they’ll be freely available to be republished both online and offline. You’re also free to republish your article after it has appeared on The Mindful Word. Read our Creative Commons page and this essay for more info about this license and why we publish this way.

Note – Please attach a short note at the top of your submission, indicating what experience you have with the particular topic your submission relates to. If you have other topics that are of interest to you that you’d like to write about for us, please mention what experience you have on those topics as well. Indicate how many articles or how often you’d like to write for us and whether you’re open to having article topics assigned to you. At the top of your letter, please write “India.” We do this to ensure everyone has read the guidelines otherwise we won’t read the submission.

Editing – We edit all submissions to ensure quality, to suit our audience and to adhere to our style guidelines so expect that your work will be edited. If your piece is selected for publication, expect that it could take up to three weeks from the date of submission before it will be published. If you have not heard from us within 14 days of submission, your piece has not been selected for publication.

Please submit all articles in .doc or .docx format as PDF is difficult to edit.

Submit Your Work Here

We will respond within two weeks.