From Desk to HackerNoon: Your Ultimate Guide on How to Publish a Story

So, you're itching to publish a story on HackerNoon but feeling a bit lost? Don't fret! We've put together this step-by-step guide with all the information you'll need to go from draft to top story in no time. Let's dive in!

TL:DR

To Submit a story to HackerNoon, please follow the Below Checklist:

1. Log in to Hacker Noon via Hackernoon.com/login. If you’re struggling to create an account at HackerNoon, read this blog post or visit our help page.
2. Click on Start Writing to the left of your thumbnail (or go directly there).
3. Write or upload a great tech story - detailed instructions for editor 3.0 here.
4. Click Story Settings in the upper right-hand corner.
5. Enter 8 tags (guideline).
6. Upload a feature image (guideline).
7. Enter your meta tag so search engines can easily find you (guideline).
8. Confirm that you have the rights to submit the content and that all vested interests of companies mentioned in the story have been disclosed.
9. Select Submit Story for Review.
10. You will then receive an email to confirm that we have received your submission.
11. A Staff Editor should review within 3 business days..ish. See full guidelines here.
12. If accepted, we’ll distribute, distribute, and distribute your tech story. See how we distribute things here.

Writers meet the draft page!

Let's set the scene: you've been an avid reader of HackerNoon for some time now and finally decided it's time to share your own content here. So you hit the "Start Writing" button sitting at the top right corner of your screen. Boom! It's writing time - and here's what you'll find on our editor 3.0:

1. Titles

When crafting your new story in our editor, you've got two choices for titles: you can either come up with your own or let our system generate suggestions for you.

To enter your own title, simply type it into the designated space and use our auto-capitalization feature to ensure proper formatting—click the robot icon to toggle this feature on or off.

If you're feeling stuck, click the lightbulb icon for a suggestion. Just make sure your text body contains enough content for our system to detect the story's theme, and ensure the title space is empty before clicking "generate headline".

Once you've added your title, your draft will be automatically saved, so remember to include some text.

2. Formatting Features

In our editor, you've got all the tools at your fingertips to format your text just how you want it: bold, overline, underline, lists, links, headlines, quotes, code, and more. To do so select your text and choose your desired options.

Alternatively, you can click the + button on the left of your text line and pick an option from the list, which contains some options seen above and others like tables, images, links, dividers, info notices, and more. Here’s how it looks:

3. Embeds

There are three main things you can embed in your story: images, videos, and links.

Starting with images, you've got a range of choices: import from your device, import an image from a URL, grab one from an image bank, embed a GIF, or generate an AI image. Simply choose your preferred option, and voila! Your image will appear in your draft.

When it comes to videos, you've can import them as you would images or embed YouTube links. Click the + button, navigate to the link option, paste your URL, and hit enter. Then, you'll encounter a prompt asking if you want to embed the link. For YouTube videos, you'll have the choice to add just the video, the transcription, or both - it will look something like this:

Lastly, links: it’s very similar to embedding YouTube videos, except you can link stories, code, and other external sources. Here’s how:

Onto The Story Settings

Now that you have the gist of what you can do with your copy on our editor, here’s the rundown on the story settings fields you’ll need to fill out before submitting the story for editorial review:

1. Add all of your story’s 8 tags: Tags help Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and friends find your content, to serve it to users searching for those terms. Plus, tags help HackerNoon distribute your content to top trafficked pages, as well as the most subscribed tags via our customizable newsletter, The Tech Brief.

   
   

2. Open Story Settings: At the top of your story settings you’ll see the number of words written - check this before submitting. One of our editorial guidelines stipulates a minimum word count for publication eligibility.

3. Upload a featured image: Choose one from your device, explore image banks, and GIFs, or ask AI to create a new one.

3. Customize how you want comments managed for your story: Decide whether you want them to undergo editorial review or be approved instantly.
4. Add your metadescription: Help web crawlers to index and humans to read
5. Craft a TL:DR: type between 300 and 500 characters or have our AI generate a TL:DR for you

6. Pick Emoji Credibility Indicators: These indicators help you provide additional information relating to your story, giving readers more context.
7. Is your story original? If it's a republication, hit "No" and drop the URL where it first went live; if it's fresh content, just tap "Yes". When in doubt, consult our republishing guidelines here.

Once you've wrapped up all these steps, keep an eye out for a button that pops up at the bottom prompting you to "Submit Your Story for Review!" If you're feeling good about your story, just give it a click. Soon after, you'll get an email confirming that we've received your submission. A Staff Editor should review it within 3 business days..ish, and if accepted, we’ll distribute, distribute, and distribute your tech story.

Additional tools

In the story settings, you'll find some extra goodies! You can whip up sticky notes and shoot a message to an editor for some writing support. Check out how it looks below:

And there you have it! You're now equipped with the tools to transition from draft to publication - no reason not to hit that submit button and share your work with the world!