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Welcome to our Submission Information Page. We just knew you wanted to write for The Power of Moms. We’re confident that all mothers have something great to teach, and we’re willing to bet you have some thoughtful, optimistic, down-to-earth, inspiring ideas to help our readers gain new perspectives and feel a sense of progression in their roles as deliberate mothers and women.

(We’ve even compiled some tips to help you find time for writing.)

We invite mothers to write because the process is empowering, rewarding, and inspiring for all involved. When devoted, busy, wonderful mothers (who might not have ever considered themselves as “writers”) begin to record their thoughts and feelings, deliberate mothers, as a group, have a voice. Your voice is powerful. Your voice means something to mothers out there who need exactly what you have to offer. Men are also most certainly welcome to write (as are children–if they have something encouraging for mothers). Our site is generally geared toward moms, but if you, as a son, father or husband, had an article talking about your own mother, your wife, encouragement for mothers in general, or parenting principles that apply equally to moms and dads, we would love to read what you have to say.

Some introductory information:

The submissions we publish on our website will be different than what you will find on most motherhood-related websites. Our focus is not on how to decorate, cook, discipline, clean, etc., but to strengthen the woman inside the mother and inspire her to excellence. Please read through our site to gain a sense of what we offer, and then consider helping us learn the lessons embedded in your personal experiences.

Our selection process is based on how your contribution feels. The Power of Moms does not pay its authors, but we are happy to link to your blog or website in your byline, and we do provide our regular authors with a complimentary one-year subscription to either our Learning Circles materials or our Mind Organization for Moms program.

Each month, we will post the following types of submissions related to the 12 Powers of Motherhood:

(1) Picture Stories

These are simply photographs from family experiences with a short paragraph describing each picture.

(2) Essays

(3) Book Summaries

Submissions for each Power are due on the first day of the prior month (so if you’d like to submit something for The Power of Fun, which is in October, your submission would be due September 1st). Please identify your submission as either a Picture Story, Essay, or Book Summary. More details are spelled out below.

Here are the 12 Powers:

(We’ve also included brief examples of the kinds of submissions we’re looking for.) Our goal is to approach these powers from a variety of angles, so we welcome your creativity here!

January: The Power of Acceptance: Accepting yourself, your family members, and your life situation. Having realistic expectations and not comparing yourself to others.

February: The Power of Love: “I love you rituals” in the home, using love to diffuse a tough situation or personality, and using love to make your home the kind of place everyone wants to be. Love being a choice, not a feeling; a verb, not a noun. How giving love fills your well as much as it does those you care for.

March: The Power of Patience: Patience with yourself, with difficult long-term situations, and just long days full of constant needs. Patience through perspective – recognizing that each season will pass. Ideas to help moms deal with those moments when they’re about to “lose it.”

April: The Power of Individuality: Appreciating who you are and your individual mothering style. Discovering your unique talents and strengths, and embracing what you and you alone have to offer your children and the world.

May: The Power of Intention: Living deliberately, choosing your path, and moving forward with purpose. Remembering that you chose to be a mother. How to “mother on purpose” and become who you are meant to be…as a person. 

June: The Power of Progress: Finding ways to develop your talents, making goals to improve yourself and your family, and tracking the progress you’re making every day.

July: The Power of Balance: Having mental steadiness, emotional stability, and a habit of calm behavior. Knowing how to find balance when so many things pull on you, and putting your strength and energy where they need to be at critical moments. 

August: The Power of Priorities: Choosing which balls to juggle and putting first things first. Knowing there are times and seasons for different priorities. Practical ways to assess what’s really important in your life. Putting self-care high on the list, and remembering that just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. 

September: The Power of Organization: Mind organization, time organization, and family systems. Recognizing that home and family organization doesn’t necessarily mean a perfectly clean house. You want to have the right things in order.

October: The Power of Fun: Family traditions, making work fun, enjoying the serendipitous moments. Sharing your fun (hobbies and interests) with your children, and making time to have fun on your own. How humor and fun can bring energy, perspective and joy to otherwise challenging moments.

November: The Power of Optimism: Looking for and celebrating the good. Following your children’s example of optimism and leaving behind the many faces of negativity. Having an attitude of gratitude. Getting rid of excuses for why you can’t be great and live life fully. Using optimism to shape your reality: “Today’s going to be a great day!”  

December: The Power of Moments: Recognizing and taking advantage of teaching moments, stopping to cherish the beautiful moments, and enjoying the fleeting present. 

Submission Process and Guidelines

1. Pick your power–and then share your picture story, essay, or book summary.

The best way to start is to describe an experience that brings that month’s power to life, whether the experience is embedded in a photograph, a more fully-developed essay, or a book you love.  Share the relevant details in a way that would interest and apply to a large, diverse audience of women. With full essays, we request that you include a challenge and a question for the readers. For book summaries, please click here to see the format we’d like you to use.

We appreciate spell-checked, edited submissions, but they don’t have to be perfect. We’ve got a whole team of editors ready to polish things up, if necessary.

If you don’t have a particular power in mind, but you have a great submission you’d like to share, go ahead and send it in. Occasionally we publish pieces unrelated to the Power of the Month, or we can schedule it to post at a later time.

  • Word count for Picture Stories: 100
  • Word count for Essays: 700-1,000
  • Word count for Book Summaries: 700

2.  Paste your submission directly into the body of your email.

We also accept links to blog posts, but please link to that specific post—not just to your blog in general (and please, no Word attachments).

The subject of the email should be the title of the submission and your name. Please also include the title/author/power/type of submission (books summary, essay, or picture story) in the body of the submission–this saves us a lot of time.

3. Add a photo (or photos).

Each published picture story or essay needs at least one accompanying photo. If you have one, please attach it to your email or post it on your blog and send us the link. We would prefer you to include your own personal photos, but if you don’t have one, please check this page for some wonderful resources, and please be sure to give credit to the photographer and source (legally, we need the link to the page where you downloaded the image). We can help out here, if necessary.

4. Register on The Power of Moms website, add a brief bio to your profile, and add a headshot to Gravatar.

We know this kind of thing can be overwhelming, but you can keep it simple. Write one paragraph that will help our readers know more about you. Where do you live? Who’s in your family? What do you like to do? What’s the best and hardest thing about your life?  (If you put your bio right into your profile, please be sure you include your username with your submission . . . so we can find you in the system!)

Many sites (including ours) can automatically insert a photo of you that has been uploaded through www.gravatar.com.  It’s free and simple, and as long as your email address with them is the same as it is with us, we’ll be all set.

5. Email your finished product to [email protected].

You’ll receive a brief auto-responder, letting you know your submission arrived safely, and then we’ll contact you within six weeks regarding the status of your submission.

The Power of Moms reserves the right to edit submissions for length, structure, grammar, tone, etc., but we’ll send you a link to the edited version before it goes live.

6.  We’d also love to connect with you through our Power of Moms Authors Newsletter (this is separate from our general newsletter).

Each month, we’ll send out a “call” to our authors (and future authors), providing specific ideas and prompts we’d like to feature on our website for the upcoming power.  We’ve found that many moms like a little reminder and a deadline, so if you aren’t quite ready to submit something now, but you’d like to be invited to do so, click here to sign up (you can unsubscribe any time).

 

If you have any questions, please contact our Content Director, Alisha.Gale (at) powerofmoms.com,.

Thank you!  We’re VERY happy to have you here!