Story Submission

We’d love to hear your college story. For now, all we ask is you give us a brief synopsis. Our editors will respond with their thoughts and hopefully some next steps towards producing it as one of our next episodes.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for true-ish stories that happened in or even about college. Right now, we are only want your pitch idea. If your synopsis piques our interest and fits our format, we will email you back and ask you to send us more of it.

When you’re pitching your story here, you don’t need to tell us the entire tale. Give us some context of when and where it happened. Give us a good story arc with some kind of reflection or difference it may have made on you or others. You don’t need to be formal about it but make sure it gives us a little glimpse of your voice.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

  • We consider English-language submissions from anywhere in the world.
  • Stories should not be plagiarized in part or in full.
  • Simultaneous submissions are allowed but please let us know if your work is published elsewhere.
  • There is no fee to submit your idea or final story.

NEXT STEPS AFTER YOU SUBMIT

  1. After you submit, you’ll receive an email stating our gratitude and that we received your submission. You will be automatically added to our mailing list but you are free to unsubscribe at any time.
  2. At some point not long after you submit, we will personally respond to you. At the colleges we went to, we always got feedback on our work so why should it be different here? If we don’t pursue the idea, it does not mean it isn’t a great story. It may just mean it wasn’t great for our podcast format.
  3. If your pitch intrigues us and fits our format, we will ask you to send us your fully developed story. Before you send it however, we will need you read and sign our agreement for producing and publishing it.
  4. Once the agreement is signed and the story is sent, we will work with you to develop your story into our podcast format. Editing, intros and outros, FX and music will be added by us. We do our best to produce a final version that captures the intent of your story the best we can.
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FAQ

How long should my story be?

We tell everyone there is no set time. A good story takes as long, or as short, as it takes to tell it well. If it holds a listener’s interest the entire way, it’s the perfect length.

With that said, we find our most popular episodes are anywhere between 12-15 minutes when read. Your story will seems puny if we put an intro and outro to it in our format and those seem longer than the actual story itself. In writing terms, that has worked out to be anywhere from 2,000 – 3,000 words.

Does Once In College pay for stories?

For now, no. At this time we know it’s not much, but on our limited budgets, we have to utilize the majority of the little funds we have into the production, marketing and promotion of your story and the podcast. We are also wholeheartedly into promoting your name and links as an author in all the ways we can.

Can I read my own story?

At this point no, that’s not our format. However, we may interview you or ask for some soundbites for the final episode from you to help us convey your story.

Do I have to use my real name in the story?

First off, the story needs to be true. With that said, there may be very valid reasons to not let others know who you are. That is up to you. You do not need to use your actual name in the story or as the author in the final version. You can use a pen name or pseudonym if you wish. But we will need your legal name for permission to produce and publish your story.