This post is part of a monthly series on how to best utilize your personal branding and media benefits. [Note: This benefit is for YEC members only. Click here to find out if you qualify.]
If you’re new to the community — or just new to getting published — you might not be familiar with what our editorial team does behind the scenes. Since getting published can be both exciting and a little anxiety-inducing, I thought I’d share an inside look.
The very first step happens before you even log into your member dashboard, and that’s when you (and perhaps your marketing or PR support) develop a plan for your content. I really can’t emphasize this enough — thought leadership is a long-term process, and you’ll see the most benefit if you have developed ideas and themes in advance.
But when you’re ready to submit, here’s what to expect — and how to make the most of our editors’ guidance.
What to Expect From the Editing Process
Write your article (offline or directly in your dashboard) and save as draft as you go. You can come back anytime to review your work if needed.
When you want our team to take a look, simply hit save and submit for review. This notifies our team that your piece is ready for edits!
After you submit your article for review, a first-round editor will spend some time giving your draft a thorough read. They consider factors like:
- Does the article overall help educate and inform your target audience?
- Did you include specific, clear tips that help the reader apply your advice to real business situations?
- Are there opportunities to improve transitions and simplify complex ideas or language?
The first-round editor may make some edits directly, especially for grammar and style. If they think the article needs more substantive revisions, you’ll receive an email notification asking you to jump back in. We’ll give you specific questions and point out areas for improvement so you know exactly how to rework the piece. And of course, you can ask us questions you may have too.
The piece may go back and forth between writer and editor a few more times as you collaborate on improving the draft. That’s perfectly normal.
Finally, we do one more proofread with a second editor so that you can feel confident the final product is polished and professional. We’ll send this back to you for review so you can make sure everything looks good before preparing it for publication. That’s it!
As you can see, the idea here is that every article is a collaboration between you, the author, and our team of editors, who have helped thousands of members like you get published. The process does take some time, but the end result is a piece of content you can be proud of — and use over and over again as an example of your own thought leadership.