Contributor Guide

Thanks for your interest in writing for Rulebreaker! Pitches are closed right now while I work on finding the voice of this publication again. Get on our newsletter to find out when new pitch calls are open.

All stories should have a clear, singular and riveting angle related to running a business on your own. This is an independent publication where the stakes are high and stories need to be clickworthy. I only publish 2-3 contributions a month. Please read below to learn more about what I'm looking for. — Lex

Revenue Rulebreaker produces stories and events about how microentrepreneurs actually make a living online.

Here we cover hard won wins from lovable underdogs—not blowhard outliers who build their business on personality, unearned money or cons. We examine repeatable practices for business building and we enjoy lifestyle stories that feature the unconventional ways internet entrepreneurs live.

Imagine The Cut but for the internet business owner.

We're focused on solopreneurs and microentrepreneurs. We are writing for businesses led by one or two people. They might have a small team or collaborators but we cater to the founders. Most of our audience is "creative entrepreneurs," meaning designers, writers, marketers, strategists, coaches, developers, and journalists. The majority run service-based, remote businesses, but many of them are developing alternative revenue streams, exploring media, digital products, memberships, courses, books, speaking and beyond.

We're here to surface unheard stories and actionable ideas our readers can apply to their own business. Revenue Rulebreaker stories aren't just blogs about business. They have a bite to them that pulls you in like this story about paywalls and this one on branding while Black. Ruthless, relevant and entertaining.

I am looking for pressing, gritty, engaging, insider stories that are super relevant to my base. Skim the archive before pitching me to get a sense of what we publish.

📥 How to pitch Revenue Rulebreaker

Send your pitch via email to Lex and put "Contributor Pitch" in the subject line.

Do not send full pieces. A short pitch with a potential headline and your nut graph (what your story would cover) is sufficient. Current rate is $200 a story, no matter how long. I publish 2-3 guest contributors a month and I get only 20 or so pitches per month so your odds are good if your story is good!

Make sure to include in your pitch:

What the angle is. Where's the story going? What's your perspective? What's the audience takeaway? Don't just pitch a topic.
Who the story is about (name names—you or other people. Tell me who you are covering in this story and what your relationship is to them, if not about you.)
At least 2 published writing samples
Your bio and links to learn more about you

If you want to pitch multiple stories, you can put them in the same email.

Please share more about you and how to find you online in your pitch. I need to know you are a real person and that my audience can trust you. I strongly prefer you have an existing online presence (a website, social profiles, published work.) If I can't figure out who you are, what your business/background/expertise is, it's very hard to accept that pitch. Show me (and my audience) that you exist online and let me do my own research about your work.

Remember that how you write your pitch tells me a lot about whether or not your writing style will work for this publication.

The kinds of stories I'm looking for

I am looking for timely, super fresh takes that show us an unheard of side to business. All stories need to target creative solo entrepreneurs who operate in a digital world.

Rulebreaker readers like a little struggle, controversy or gossip. They especially love strong opinions, strongly held and people who wear their values proudly on their sleeve. Consider why now is the right time to tell this story. In general, I don't publish "here's how my whole business works" stories and I don't publish stories that are just pitches for what you sell. Think about a story you'd be excited to read.

I prefer first hand accounts, written by entrepreneurs, but will consider lightly reported or community sourced pieces too, especially from writers who have experience with the topic they are pitching. If you pitch something about someone who is not you, tell me who that person is and share a link so I can learn more about them.

The stories I publish:

Have a genuinely unusual or rarely heard perspective
Are entertaining and well written (not just dry facts)
Crack open ONE revenue stream that's hard to tackle by giving us insider details of something you did to make money
Give us a new way to think about our own business model within the context of our current times
Help us learn how to make money by teaching us one repeatable strategy (with evidence and examples)
Inspire us with unconventional lifestyles of entrepreneurs

A few great examples from our archives:

Common reasons I don't accept a pitch

Ignoring the instructions on this page
Pitching me anywhere but in my email like I asked
Sending full stories (don't send full stories!)
Sending me their whole life story or a story about how their entire business works instead of a single story pitch with an angle
Sending a story pitch that is a tee up for your offer. If your post could be a sales webinar, I'm not interested.
Pitching super generic stuff or topics like "memberships"—I need to understand what story you are telling to accept it. It should have a beginning, middle and end.
Not including who the story is about. You must explain who the story is about to have a story pitch. A vague concept is not a story pitch.
Sending story pitches that have nothing to do with business. This is a business publication.
I can't find you anywhere online and I cannot validate you are who you say you are (my audience needs to be able to learn about you and trust you.) Include links!

Stories I don't need

Leaving corporate for entrepreneurship
How I made 6 figures doing XYZ
Gimmicks that worked for you once ("I made $4k in a weekend." "I sold a $5 digital download on a billboard.")
Stories about real estate or short term rentals (I never take these)
Stories about brick and mortar, textile, culinary and physical product businesses (in general, I don't take these. If there's an online/ecomm component or a really compelling angle, I will occasionally consider them, but it's not our core editorial interest. We serve digital entrepreneurs.)

🖊️ How to write for Revenue Rulebreaker

Once your pitch is accepted, here's some things to keep in mind while you write. Also, check out some of the pieces on the site for examples of the style of this blog.

No AI is allowed in your writing. You cannot use AI to draft any language in the final article. If I find out AI was used in the writing, I'll pull the story. You can use AI to brainstorm or organize your research, but you can't let it write for you.
Write in your voice, from your perspective. We tend to write very casually here, like we're recounting the story to a friend, but if that's not natural for you, write how you write. (See Maliha's post on membership and Taiwo's post on rate raising as examples)
Assume your reader is smart, informed and can keep up with you. Revenue Rulebreaker's audience is not new to business and they are paying a lot of attention to what's going on around them. It's good to explain new concepts or link out to explanations, but you don't need to break everything down like it's a business class.
Avoid generalizations and generic advice. We want your story or someone else's story, not vagaries about groups of people.
Our readers appreciate radical honesty and deeper-than-social-media vulnerability, but no need to fabricate any feelings that weren't there. If you were confident you had a slam dunk the whole time, tell us! If you were crying up until your breakthrough moment, tell us that too.
Give us all the details. We want to see screenshots of emails. Pictures of the process. Actual revenue numbers. Exactly what you said. Exactly what you did.
Make it a fun read. Not mandatory, especially if your story offers us excellent, practical takeaways, but readers around here love when something is extremely opinionated or unexpectedly human. You can also incorporate cultural moments (like Justin Bieber "standing on business") if that flows naturally too.
Pay attention to your use of special formatting. Avoid overusing quotations, italics, em dashes and line breaks.

Notes on your format

Grab the reader with your opener. Figure out why they might care about your subject and lead with that why to get them hooked.
Use subheadings to break up sections and make your piece skimmable (we use sentence case not title case for headlines and subheads.)
In your closer, tell us your takeaway or what you think our takeaway should be. If possible, tie it back to your opener.
Avoid big words that people might have to look up. Aim for 6th grade reading level.
Use specific examples from one business (yours or someone else's)
If talking about data, you must cite your data.
Minimum word count is roughly 600 words. No maximum word count.
For your contributor bio: Make sure to provide your photo, a 1-2 line bio and any links you want. Here's an example guest bio for reference.

I am not at all picky about grammar. I will run spell check on your piece and give it a light edit. We don't follow any style like AP or Chicago Style because I don't understand why I should care about this yet, but at some point someone will make me care about it and we'll pick a lane later.

Requirements for getting paid

It's important to me to pay you quickly and I make every effort to do so. I pay on story receipt, not on publication, but you need to follow my invoicing guidelines to get paid fast:

Send your invoice with your draft. Your invoice MUST arrive in a separate email from your story. I do not pay with PayPal or Venmo.
Preferred method of invoicing: Use Stripe or another digital invoicing tool like Wave, Harvest, or QuickBooks to email me a payable invoice. Enable credit card payment if possible (much preferred) and if not, include bank transfer as an option through your invoicing tool where I can add my bank details directly and avoid having to do a wire transfer.
If that's not possible: Set up an account on Wise and email me a PDF attachment invoice (NOT an editable document) with the subject line "Invoice: Your story title or name." Be sure to include all of your Wise account information so I can pay you (Wisetag, Full name on account, Your address, Bank name, Bank address, Account number, Routing number, Account type). Account must be under your name.
By submitting your invoice, you are warranting that you're an independent contractor and that you're responsible for all your own federal, state and local taxes.