Writing Guide & How-to videos

Thanks for writing for topmusic.co.

Please find details and videos below about how to write, format and submit your article for the blog.

If you have any questions, please email me: emily@topmusic.co.

Style Overview

Please use APA-style formatting and Australian English. The audience is a well-educated, niched group of music teachers focussed on piano teaching. We enjoy a fresh perspective but always maintain professionalism.

Writing should be error-free and single-spaced periods used. Grammarly is an excellent free grammar checker we suggest.

Please use headings & subheadings.

Length

Most TopMusicCo articles are 1500-2000 words. 1200 words is our minimum word count requirement.

Images

Generally we provide all images with in-house branding. If you have a supporting image, feel free to send it for inclusion, provided it uses royalty-free images or original artwork.

Links

One to two links are allowed in the author byline. Feel free to include yours there.

To feature do-follow links to your own website within the article, please peruse our paid advertising options.

Formatting

Please suggest a heading and break up the text with subheadings.

Also please include a conclusion with the title ‘Conclusion’. In the conclusion, ask the audience to interact with the blog. You could ask them a question or invite them to share their experiences.

Please provide a 2-4 sentence author bio and headshot. Max 80 words.

Please send your finished blog post to emily@topmusic.co either as a Word document in a Google Doc. 

Headlines

Please use an engaging, compelling headline for your article which includes search keywords related to your article topic.

E.g. — If your article deals with students quitting piano, a compelling title could be, “10 Reasons Students Ultimately Quit Piano” or “8 Signs a Family is About to Quit Your Piano Studio”

Coschedule Headline analyzer is a good tool for gauging interest on possible headlines.

Before you finish:

Add some kind of call to action: eg. you could finish with a heading: “What do you think?” and then a short paragraph with:

We’ve covered a lot of ground here – what do you think? Do you think this method of teaching will work for you? or …. What’s one thing that you think will work best in your studio this week? Please leave a comment below.

[The last part is the most important: ask them to do something! It doesn’t always work, but it’s good to ask :)]