Write for Parenting and Family Magazines

Do you want to write parenting and family articles and get paid to do so? I know there are a lot of parents out there doing the job every day, thinking, "I should write about this. I wonder if others struggle with this. I could help someone with my story or with a researched article about this topic. I could learn some cool things in the process of helping others and making money!"

I had those same thoughts back in 2005-ish when I had my third baby and was in the trenches of the parenting battlefield. I cracked open my local parenting magazine after snagging it at the local children's consignment shop, sent something to them about stocking up on meals instead of going grocery shopping daily, and I made a fast 25 bucks.

Then I wondered if I could maybe send the same piece to other magazines in other cities. Did they only want local content, or would they take my evergreen (can be used anytime of the year, ages well) piece?

Write for Chicken Soup for the Soul

Updated 7/10/24

Chicken Soup for the Soul has an astounding collection of inspiring books! I remember when I got the one for mothers for Mother's Day many years ago, and I still have it, all Post-It noted and highlighted! I've given away a lot of books over the years, but the Chicken Soup books stay on my shelf forever!

These are the most current upcoming potential book topics with deadlines and here are the submission guidelines for Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Cat Stories

The deadline for submissions is SEPTEMBER 30, 2024.

We are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting stories for our cat topic book that is to be released in 2025. Because of the popularity of this topic, we do a new cat book approximately every eighteen months so here is another chance for you to share a story or two about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet!

Cats have always been considered companions and playmates that brighten our days and enrich our lives. What would we do without them? They are also wonderful and amazing teachers. The lessons we learn from our feline friends come in all shapes and sizes, just like they do. Tell us the new thing your feline friend has taught you. How smart she is or how she outsmarted you! How he made you smile. How she "rescued" you after you "rescued" her. How he brought your family closer together, helped you find love, inspired you to change something in your human life. How she rules the roost! Stories can be serious or humorous, or both. We can't wait to read all the heartwarming, inspirational, and hysterical stories you have about your cats.

600 Parenting and Family Magazines That Pay

I'm sure you've seen parenting and family magazines like this one all over your town and when you travel, as well as online. 

Did you know they are always looking for fresh content from parents, grandparents, and other experts just like you?

Did you know that once you sell an article to one of these magazines, you are free to sell it to others all over the country and even worldwide (as long as you don't sign something saying the magazine you're working with gets all rights, in which case you should be asking for a lot more money)?

Did you know you don't need a degree to be able to write for these magazines and earn a reliable and lucrative income?

Write for Reader's Digest

Check out this post on The Adventurous Writer/Writing Blossoms titled 10 Things You Need to Know About Writing for Reader's Digest. Then see the submission guidelines below. Good luck to you!

Don't send the completed manuscript of your article. The editors will not read it or mail it back. Instead, write a summary of no more than one page. If you will interview the hero of the story, be sure to mention it---it may help you sell your story. Email your proposal to articleproposals@readersdigest.com.

If writing an entire article is too daunting, try something shorter. Reader's Digest encourages its readers to send in funny true stories, jokes, and humorous quotations. Keep your submission within the 500-word limit. If you submit an anecdote originally published elsewhere, include the name of where and when it was published, including the page number.

Write for Highlights for Children Magazine

We do not accept work through Submittable (or through e-mail) from writers younger than 16. 

Young writers and artists may send their work to: Highlights for Children, 803 Church Street, Honesdale, PA 18431

. 

Highlights is a general-interest magazine for children ages 6-12. By publishing stories, puzzles, articles, and activities that are fun and engaging, we aim to inspire kids to be their best selves–creative, curious, caring, and confident. Highlights was founded in 1946 by Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers and Caroline Clark Myers, and is still owned and run by their family. The magazine accepts no outside advertising and has no religious or organizational affiliation. Highlights has a circulation of about a million and is published monthly.

Write for Pregnancy and Newborn Magazine

*As of July 2020, there is not a print version of this magazine

Freelance Writers
We’re glad you’re interested in the prospect of working with Pregnancy & Newborn magazine—we’re always looking to add to our pool of writers and are currently accepting freelance submissions! Please read and follow the guidelines below so you can query us effectively and we can respond efficiently.

First, familiarize yourself with Pregnancy & Newborn both in print and online. Our targeted audience is comprised of women who are expecting or have a child under the age of 1. We strive to provide insightful, informative articles that discuss all things pregnancy- and baby-related in a casual, conversational, girlfriend-to-girlfriend manner. As a national magazine, we cover topics that are relevant to pregnant and new moms across the country.

Western New York Family Magazine Call for Articles for 2022 Issues

UPDATE 10/15/22: WNY Family's current "Journey into Fatherhood" columnist is "retiring" in January 2023, so we are looking for a new "voice" to take his place. If you're a dad who enjoys writing and can reliably put together a 750-word column on deadline each month, we'd like to hear from you. The choice of topics is up to you — serious or humorous — dealing with the wild ride of being a dad in today's world. There is a modest payment for each column. If interested, email a sample 750-word column to michele@wnyfamilymagazine.com. Please put FATHERHOOD COLUMN in your subject line.

DIGITAL ISSUE - Western New York Family Magazine (wnyfamilymagazine.com)

Western New York Family is looking for articles for their 2022 issues! 

Please read the information below to see what they are looking for, and good luck to you 😃 You can find the complete list of writer's guidelines for Western New York Family here, as well as information for 599 more markets, in my book titled The Mother of All Writing Market Books!

Start a freelance writing career for about the cost of a fancy coffee and a muffin!

Yes, I am all done perfecting The Mother of All Writing Market Books PDF instant download and you can get it on eJunkie now! Here's the introduction so you know what's going on!

The Mother of All Writing Market Books: 600 Homes for Your Family, Parenting, & Women's Articles, Essays, & More

So you have a pretty original and awesome idea for a parenting and family niche magazine article. Or—look at you go!—maybe you’ve written the entire thing already and you just know it’ll be a perfect fit for a publication somewhere in the world. Now what?

 

Like any normal person, you hit “the Google” and are quickly overwhelmed. You remove your face from your Internet-enabled device and realize you’ve gone down a two-hour online rabbit hole filled with blog posts that scream titles like “Top 10 Parenting Magazines for 2021” and “19 Popular Parent Magazines Paying Parents to Write Stories” … except that when you started clicking on the links, you found that half of them aren’t even publishing anymore.

 

Does anybody ever go back and check/update these posts? It doesn’t seem like it, which is beyond frustrating. But you have to realize that the publishing industry changes DAILY.

Write for ParentMap Seattle, Eastside Baby, Family Adventure, and Seattle Baby

Below are the guidelines for ParentMap from my instant PDF download, The Mother of All Writing Market Books! Don't forget to use promo code PPBLOG20 for a nice lil discount!

Location: Seattle, WA

Frequency: monthly

Website: http://parentmap.com

Contact Info: editor@parentmap.com

Write for Clubhouse Magazine

Focus on the Family Clubhouse is a 32-page magazine designed to inspire, entertain and teach Christian values to children ages 8-12. The magazine, which has a circulation of over 60,000, reaches young readers and their parents all over the world. Parents trust Clubhouse to provide wholesome, educational material with Scriptural or moral insight. The kids anticipate stories with excitement, adventure, action or humor. Your job, as a writer, is to create work that pleases both parents and children.

Fiction
Focus on the Family Clubhouse is a 32-page magazine designed to inspire, entertain and teach Christian values to children ages 8-12. The magazine, which has a circulation of over 60,000, reaches young readers and their parents all over the world. Parents trust Clubhouse to provide wholesome, educational material with Scriptural or moral insight. The kids anticipate stories with excitement, adventure, action or humor. Your job, as a writer, is to create work that pleases both parents and children.

Write for The New York Times Parenting Outlet

Jessica Grose informed me that she is not the lead editor in the Parenting department at this time. She also says these guidelines are not what they are looking for anymore, but she doesn't know exactly what they need. This is the post that is still live, unfortunately!

"I am thrilled to announce the NYT Parenting newsletter! For the next month or so, we'll be publishing the newsletter and a handful of articles each week. Then in early May, we will launch a beautiful, robust website. We'll be covering fertility and pregnancy up through kids age 5 or 6 and your lives with them, and giving you evidence-based guidance, news, and personal stories every day. It is my sincerest hope that the site will prevent you from a panicked 3 am google that lands you on a BabyCenter message board telling you that crystals and essential oils will heal your baby's rickets. The full site launches in May.

For general submissions please send to: parenting_submissions@nytimes.com

Rates depend on the type of piece.

What is NYTParenting?

Modeled after what the Times did with NYTCooking, NYTParenting will be a robust section of the Times website (parenting.nytimes.com) with new and archival content and a newsletter. NYTParenting is set to launch in Spring 2019.

We will mostly cover topics ranging from fertility and pregnancy to kids through ages 5 or 6, but we'll also be doing a lot of coverage on issues that affect parents of young children. 

We will have articles and essays, as well as guides — which are a content form with a specific structure and which are meant to answer thorny parenting problems in a service-y, research-backed way. For now, we’re mostly coming up with ideas for guides in-house.

A bit about us, philosophically:

• We are for parents who want evidence-based solutions to problems with their kids or with their own lives. We recognize that you had a baby — not a lobotomy. Your wants and needs still matter.
• We are for mothers AND fathers. Almost all parenting products are explicitly or implicitly gendered. Through design, editorial choices and framing, we will not be. We recognize that every family is different, and we are mindful of that.

What we're looking for:

Essays and articles in the 1,000 to 1,200-word range.

For articles, we're looking for timely ideas, whether they're cultural or trendy (What's the next baby shark? Why is everyone feeding their kid European formula?), based on new studies and how they affect parents (Are you really supposed to monitor your kid while they brush their teeth til they're 8?), or second-day stories on news events (How does family separation affect brain development?).

While we cover fertility through age 6, and will assign on topics affecting kids and parents in that range, we are especially focusing on the following topics in the near term for essays:

--How parenting has changed your identity, or how your identity has intersected with your parenting experience
--Relationships (with your partner, with your parents or in-laws, with your friends, with your first child when you have a second...)
--Life with babies and toddlers

We're also trying out an essay series called The Hardest Part

The Hardest Part will be a series of essays about the parts of parenting that you’ve found to be the most unexpectedly difficult, and how you worked through them (or didn't).

The tone can be as serious or as funny as the subject matter requires. It can be as straightforward as, "The hardest part of parenting is dealing with my kids during the winter," or "The hardest part of parenting is handling my kid's severe allergies," or as esoteric as, "The hardest part of parenting is how emotionally spent I feel at the end of each day.""

Have files of article reprints that you own but no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my resource with 600 markets! You can grab my instant download of "The Mother of All Writing Market Books" here.

Write for SheKnows: Parenting, Food, Home, Travel and Lifestyle + Black Mind & Body

SheKnows is looking for parenting, food, home, travel and lifestyle pitches. 

A fellow writer shared this about the pay rate: 

"The rate for lifestyle stories is $75-125 depending on length and whether or not the piece requires reporting."

Write for Girls' Life Magazine

Girls' Life Magazine Writer's Guidelines from their website

Writer's Guidelines

For freelancers…
Want to get your pitch accepted? Read our “How to Pitch” article, courtesy of mediabistro.com!

The Rules
1. Girls' Life accepts unsolicited manuscripts on a speculative basis only. First, send an e-mail or letter query with detailed story idea(s). No telephone solicitations, please. Please familiarize yourself with the voice and content of Girls' Life before submitting.

2. Girls' Life magazine does not accept poetry submissions.

3. Every story should have a title, blurb and byline. Author's complete name, address, phone number and e-mail address must be provided on submission. Referrals for art sources are appreciated, if applicable.

4. Girls' Life conforms to The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Manuscripts can be e-mailed in Microsoft Word. Documents should be double-spaced in 12-point Verdana font.

5. All research must rely on primary sources. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a complete list of sources, telephone numbers and reference materials, if applicable.

6. E-mail queries are responded to within 90 days. Girls' Life cannot be held responsible for the return of any unsolicited material.

7. Unless submission is stated to be a possible work for hire, submission will be considered property of Girls' Life magazine.

8. A memorandum of agreement is to be executed by both parties before payment is made.

Send all Girls’ Life magazine queries to:
Karen Bokram
Founding Editor and Publisher
Girls' Life magazine
3 S. Frederick St. Suite 806
Baltimore, MD 21202
writeforGL@girlslife.com

Write for Fit Pregnancy and Baby Magazine

As of the February 2016 issue, American Baby is no more and has merged with Fit Pregnancy to form ...

FIT PREGNANCY AND BABY!

Here are the submission guidelines from their website! 

FIT PREGNANCY  is a website covering health, nutrition, exercise, psychology, food, fashion and beauty issues related to pregnancy. It also includes editorial for parents of babies up to 2 years of age.

Queries should be specific. Read our website and be clear whether you are presenting an idea for a feature or a specific column.

Features (1,000 - 1,800 words) cover broad, timely topics. Features for which we accept freelance writing include:

Prenatal Fitness:
Pregnancy-safe workout programs

You and Your Baby:
• A feature story about postpartum issues.
• A postpartum exercise story (often includes weight loss).
• A story pertaining to breastfeeding issues.
• Baby Pages (baby-care issues, with emphasis on the first six weeks)

5+ Writing Opportunities for Teens

Today I'm excited to share with you 5 writing opportunities for teenagers and young adults, and these are just the beginning!

I love teenagers. I have three of my own right now plus a 12-year-old and a 20-year-old. I also love writing and have enjoyed doing it ever since I could write. 

Then I realized sometime in my 30s that journal entries, vents, and complaints can turn into magazine articles (and reprints!), short stories, print books, ebooks, PDF downloads, speaking engagements, and more. 

I've taught Creative Writing to a few different grades at our local homeschool co-op, and this past year, I taught English Grammar and Composition to high schoolers. You never know who might be the next Shirley Jackson, Fredrik Backman, Stephen King, or Emily St. John Mandel! There were some kids in there with serious talent, and I promised them I'd get out a downloadable resource so they could start submitting (working on it this summer!).

Write for Western New York Family Magazine

 

Western New York Family Magazine is looking for writers for their 2022 issues. See guidelines below, and click here to see the specific information about their 2022 needs.

Western New York Family

Buffalo, NY – monthly

http://wnyfamilymagazine.com

michele@wnyfamilymagazine.com

Current as of July 2020 

Thank you for your interest in Western New York Family Magazine, which was founded in 1984 as an 8-page newsletter called "Mother's Lifeline." Now running 64-80 pages per issue, WNY Family is a 90% freelance-written, subscription and free courtesy copy publication — both in a conventional "hard copy" print edition and an online "3D" digital edition. Our print edition has a monthly audited circulation of 20,000 copies concentrated in Erie and Niagara Counties of the Buffalo, New York metro area. As of July 2020, we have almost 7,000 digital readers monthly. 

NOT PUBLISHING: Redbook's The Mix

As of July 2016, Hearst has shut down The Mix. See this post on Jezebel.

For general Redbook submission guidelines, see this post.

The following is from Redbook's brand-new contributor network, The Mix:

Have you ever wanted to write for a major women's magazine? Now you can! Join The Mix, our contributor network, and you'll have the opportunity to write for RedbookMag.com, as well as Cosmopolitan.com, WomansDay.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, and ELLE.com. Whether you're a professional writer, avid blogger, or someone with a great story to tell, we're interested in sharing your voice with our readers.

If you'd like to be considered for The Mix, you can find more information right here. Every day, you'll receive an assignments email that includes story topics created by our editors. You can submit stories on as many assignments as you'd like, and if we publish your work, you'll get paid!

Frederick's Child Magazine Acquired by Mid-Atlantic Media

As of August 20, 2019, Frederick's Child is now owned by Mid-Atlantic Media, who also run Baltimore's Child and Washington Family.

Did you know that you can write one article and sell it again for money to dozens of different magazines all over the world? And yes, the editors know we are doing this. It’s not a secret, just something that's not very well known. Check out my resource with 600 markets! (use promo code PPBLOG20 for 20% off) You can order "TheMother of All Writing Market Books" here.

Write for Woman's Day Magazine

Thank you so very much for your interest in writing for Woman's Day. Unfortunately, you are not alone. In fact, you have so much company, and we have such a small cadre of editors, that we have had to develop what you will no doubt find a rather tough policy on unsolicited manuscripts.

This is what you need to know: Our editors work almost exclusively with experienced writers who have clips from major national magazines. As a result, we accept unsolicited manuscripts only from writers with such credentials. There are no exceptions.

If you do have significant national writing experience, and you have an idea or manuscript that you think might interest us, e-mail us at womansday@hearst.com, and please include some of your most recent clips. 

Write for Alaska Parent Magazine

Alaska Parent magazine is looking for freelance writers who demonstrate a fresh, engaging writing style and a keen sense of the topics that matter to local parents. Before you pitch a story to us, we recommend you learn more about our publication and get a feel for the type of articles we value and promote.

ABOUT ALASKA PARENT

Alaska Parent is a free, full-color family and parenting magazine, published 4 times per year. As Alaska’s exclusive, all-in-one parenting resource, our readers include parents with children ages newborn through teens, as well as expectant moms. We publish several stories in each issue, from hard-hitting articles on serious topics to pieces designed for fun and entertainment. Our writing tone is easy-to-read and conversational, yet packed with plenty of punch. Through our pages, we want our readers to feel understood, supported and empowered to make healthy parenting and life choices.