Write For Us
Soch Writing welcomes contributions from journalists, writers and academics in Pakistan and from the Pakistani diaspora. We seek public interest stories that are deeply and meticulously reported, and aim to connect bright and provocative thinkers—scholars, polemicists, essayists—to a wider audience. We pay locally competitive rates, and we promise writers a careful, thoughtful and rigorous edit.
What sort of stories do you publish?
Every Soch Writing story has a strong connection to one of our three core areas: justice, culture and the future. We publish both reported stories and critical essays. We are also interested in non-written formats: nonfiction comics, graphic essays, photo essays, audio pieces, as well as a combination of these. A typical Soch Writing feature is between 1500 and 2500 words.
What do you absolutely not publish?
No press releases, or anything that reads like it may have been sponsored by a corporation, an NGO or a politician. No content aggregation, unless paired with substantial original reporting. No celebrity interviews. No individual movie, music or book reviews. No stories that fail to reveal something new, either in terms of fact or argument.
How do I pitch Soch Writing?
Send an email to outlining your story idea. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Include links to previously published work, if applicable. If you haven’t published your work before, that’s fine, too — we want to publish newer, fresher voices. We may ask you to re-pitch or work with you to fine-tune your story idea before commissioning it. We also consider completed manuscripts.
Do you pay?
Yes. Base payment begins at PKR 10,000.
What makes a good pitch?
Make sure there is a story. It is not enough to say ‘I want to write about X’. Good pitches are specific: they identify a central question.
There is a reporting plan. Show you’ve done some homework on the reporting or research needed to tell the story. Identify the broader context. Describe interview possibilities, if applicable, as well as the questions you want to ask and potentially answer in the story.
It has news value. The topic doesn’t need to be ripped from the headlines, but your proposed story should have a fresh angle. What makes it different from previous coverage? Why would readers care about your story? Why are you interested in telling this story? What makes you uniquely qualified to write this piece?
It is an audition for your storytelling skills. If your pitch isn’t interesting or well written, we won’t know whether you can do justice to the actual story. Please take care with spelling and grammatical mistakes.
What does your editing process look like?
Each story receives multiple rounds of edits. The extent of editing depends on the quality of your draft and its suitability for our audience. Substantive edits will be followed by a round of fact-checking and copy-editing. We will run all edits by you before we publish. If you would like a copy of our reporting guidelines and fact-checking processes, please email [email protected].
Do you have any job openings?
Not at the moment, but please check our social media pages for hiring announcements.