Natural Awakenings Welcomes Your Participation!

Submitting  Editorial

Your editorial submissions are what make Natural Awakenings a community resource for holistic health and natural living. We want our readers to get to know you. Submitting editorial for one or more of our departments provides you with the opportunity to share knowledge and bring focus to your business.

Natural Awakenings Editorial Style Guidelines

Our collective mission with this free monthly magazine is to educate readers about the latest in natural living and green living. Our mind/body/spirit-oriented audience is profiled at Lohas.com.

Each month. we share pertinent global news and interviews with national experts. We also spotlight local people, exploring their natural healthy living activities and businesses. We welcome ideas for stories as well as local article submissions. some of which may qualify for one of our departments:

Conscious Eating, Fit Body, Green Living, Healing Ways, Natural Pet, Healthy Kids, and Creative Expression.

General Natural Awakenings writing guidelines

• Establish a strong lead paragraph and compelling close.
• Remember the five Ws: who, what, where, when and why.
• Write in third-person news style for briefs & most articles (them/they/those/people/attendees).
• Alternatively, for articles, use we/our/us. Avoid the less formal second-person ‘you’.
• Use a clear, logical order for content. (Samples at NaturalAwakeningsMag.com.)
• Use action verbs (E.g., ABC offers; not ABC is offering).
• Use plain language and briefly define technical terms.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short.
• Include short anecdotes or case studies to illustrate key points–then expand the focus to a wider context.
• Use strong, genuine quotes to aid in reader identification.
• Add credibility with scientific studies, statistics and updates on trends.

What we want

• We focus on hope, healing, practical tips and benefits. Every reader wants to know how they can personally use and benefit from this information in their life journey.
• Attribute all medical or health claims and scientific study results; cite credible, authoritative sources. List additional resources in an italicized endnote.

What we won’t publish

• Depressing lists of symptoms and technical details of treatment.
• Extended, first-person (me/I/my) accounts of life journeys.
• Marketing or sales copy heavy on blatant self-promotion.

Additional Notes

• If your article has been published elsewhere, we are probably not interested.
• We may not publish your piece immediately, and cannot guarantee to later.
• Editorial deadlines are the 10th of the month prior to publication.
• Your original work will be edited to fit our magazine’s style. If you wish to review edits to your submission, send it at least seven days before the deadline, and be accessible.
• News briefs and articles that the magazine originates are not subject to copy review. We’ll call to check facts as needed.
• Footnote all sources cited in detail: Books and magazines need title, author, publisher, year and page number. Individuals need name, title, organization, phone, email, city and company website. We won’t publish most of this, but it saves hours in fact checking.