Write for Upstater
Promote your region. Share your stories. Reach a wider audience.
Upstater is about living, buying, renting and vacationing in the rural and suburban regions within three hours of New York City — parts of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. We cover the Hudson Valley, Finger Lakes, Berkshires, Poconos and places between. We bring readers insight into the real estate market, not to mention great houses, regional events and activities and a window into the life outside of NYC. And did we mention the houses!?!
Our writers have hearts, mortgages, leases and legacies in these regions. We also have a whole lot of enthusiasm for the architectural variety and relative affordability of real estate, plus the fresh air, incredible food, gorgeous countrysides and deep cultural life.
We welcome submissions to Upstater and invite you to submit your writing! Please read through our editorial and submission guidelines below before sending us your submission, and note that while we will try to review and reply as quickly as possible, give us seven days to respond.
Why Write for Upstater?
Because you love the Hudson Valley.
Being a contributor to Upstater lets you share that love with an audience eager to receive it. Many of the 30,000 monthly unique visitors to Upstater are city dwellers with dreams of owning a second home, or they’re ready to make the escape from Brooklyn, or have aspirations of saying goodbye to the city and hello to the farm. Our readers are thoughtful and intelligent. When your piece is accepted for publication on Upstater, we do what we can to reach as much of that audience as possible.
Because you have relevant wisdom to share.
You know the market. Or the land. Or the nightlife. You know where the best cafés are, you have an in on the most quality pickings of the agricultural bounty your region produces, and you can tell us exactly how to get to the best swimming hole in the valley. You have seasoned wisdom maintaining a second home through harsh winters and brutally hot summers. You are a skilled real estate hunter. And you want to be part of the conversation.
Because you’ll work with a great editorial team.
Our editors have decades of experience producing stellar publications that nurture the creative and cultural vitality of our region. We will make your piece shine. We’ll help out with a title to give it as much visibility as possible, and we’ll choose imagery that makes it look fab if you don’t have any. But we won’t get in your way! You can write about what you want, when you want, and once you’re an established contributor we’ll give you the keys to your own doorway to the castle.
Editorial Guidelines
- Our narrative tone is conversational, accessible and engaging. We welcome posts that are humerous, informative, insightful, aspirational and, of course, all about living, buying, renting, eating, celebrating and playing in said regions. Most of our audience live and work in New York City and want to hear all about your neck of the woods!
- Posts should be between 150 and 600 words. We also encourage you to submit photos with your post. Photos should be at least 850 pixels wide by 400 pixels tall.
- Upstater is visited by 30,000 unique visitors each month, three-quarters of whom originate in New York City. While we don’t offer monetary compensation to our contributors, we do love showing off our community of writers and your work. We’ll promote your byline, bio and links to your website, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter accounts to our audience, and we’ll push your posts to our social pages as well. Please include a bio 3-5 sentences long, a picture of yourself and all of your social links. And when your writing is published your contributor profile page will go live as well.
- If your submission promotes a business or service that is not in line with our company’s mission and our editorial vision, it will not be considered.
- Keep it light and personal. Upstater is an aspirational blog, and our readers want to know about your experiences living, working and playing in the Hudson Valley. If your writing is snarky or inflammatory, if it’s sarcastic or negative, we will refuse it. If it’s funny and endearing, we’ll eat it up and so will our readers.
- Don’t write about specific real estate listings. As an aspirational site, it is of course our duty to provide good fodder for our readers’ daydreams. Our staff writers comb through, choose and editorialize on current real estate listings, but that’s not what we’re looking for from our contributors. If houses are your thing, consider writing about an amazing renovation, spotlight a home done by a local architect or fabulous interior designer, showcase the most dramatic before/after pics of interior spaces you can find. You get the idea.
- We reserve the right to refuse any submission, for any reason, and if your post is accepted you agree to allowing our editorial team to make edits to your work at our discretion. Don’t worry. We’ll be gentle. And we won’t publish without your final ok, too.
Ready to submit your piece?
Ready… set… send!