How to pitch comment pieces
Want to write something for Inside Housing? Below is a guide to how to submit your comment pieces for consideration.
We bring the UK social housing sector unparalleled comment every day on www.insidehousing.co.uk.
We are happy to consider submissions for our comment section. Please send an email outlining the key messages of your piece to comment@insidehousing.co.uk.
We will then take a view as to whether we want you to write the piece for Inside Housing and we will give you a deadline for submission. We reserve the right to edit or cut down your piece, but any substantial changes will be discussed with you prior to publication.
Each month, a selection of our comment pieces are also chosen to appear in the monthly printed edition of Inside Housing.
Below are some tips on things to think about in order to make your pitch as strong as possible.
- The comment would need to be exclusive to Inside Housing. By this we mean it does not appear on any other website, including company websites. Including a link to the article with full attribution is, however, fine once the piece has been published on our site.
- What insight do you bring that others can’t? Ie, what qualifies you to write about the topic?
- Is the piece topical? Much of our comment reacts to the news agenda, giving extra explanation, context or reaction to the week’s biggest housing stories.
- Does the piece contain jargon? To stand the best chance of getting a piece published, the language needs to be understood by a general housing audience, even if it is on a specialised topic.
- Our comment pieces tend to be no longer than 700 words. If you are struggling to make all of your points within this word count, it might make more sense to focus on just one aspect in detail.
- Can you back up the claims you are making? We prefer pieces that include links to source material, such as data, reports etc. Similarly, we have to look very carefully at allegations made against specific individuals or organisations and, on occasion, will need more information in order to be able to publish them.
- If we decide that we want to publish your piece, we would need a hi-res jpeg of the author to go with it. To save time, we advise you to submit this with the piece.