Want to join our growing community of readers and reviewers?
Why should you write for us?

Book reviews seem to be in short supply on Medium, despite being an online Mecca for a huge diversity of avid readers. There’s a niche to fill, and we intend to fill it.

The Open Bookshelf specifically seeks to publish voices from around the world, not those born into a country that speaks English as a first language. To help us towards achieving this goal, we provide line-editing, proof-reading and stylistic editing for every submission that comes our way.

This editing offer doesn’t just benefit non-native English speakers; having a second or third set of eyes running over your work is a huge advantage for all writers — budding and established. More than that, for Medium newbies, this editing process ensures that all TOB articles are primed for curation.

Our last three newbies published their first ever Medium articles with TOB and were all curated, some in multiple topics. This discussion by Cassi Snyder is a great example:

And we offer this for free.

Many of us have come over to Medium from the ‘bookstagram’ community. The keyword here is community. We read each other’s work and we love nothing more than to start discussions. More engagement on your stories means more chances to get noticed by Medium’s editors. The more you get noticed by Medium’s editors, the more traffic TOB gets, and the more eyeballs you get on your work.

How to become a TOB Writer

Our inbox was getting a little overloaded, so, if you would like to be added to this publication as a writer, please send us an email including:

1 | Who you are and what you generally write about.

2 | Your review pitch summarised in one sentence. If you have already published your review, include the link here.

3 | Before submitting, make sure that you have followed our editor and at least three other TOB writers. Make sure you have read, clapped and responded to some of our writers’ work. As emphasised above, we are a community; we support each other. It will also help you to understand what we are looking for here.

4 | If you follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, you will be able to see if we share your work with a wider audience. Again, make sure to like, retweet, share and comment.

5 | With the subject line as TOB Article Pitch [Your Title], send us an email at: theopenbookshelf@gmail.com.

General Guidelines and Formatting

We accept submissions from both those signed up to the Medium Partnership Program and those writing for themselves, our only criteria are quality writing and big ideas. For non-native English speakers, we can provide proof-reading services free of charge on pieces shorter than 1,000 words.

1 | All pieces must have a title and subtitle, formatted as below. Try to keep these simple and succinct.
['Abbey Heffer']
['Submission Guidelines', 'Book Review', 'Writer', 'Books', 'Writing']