The Fairherst
Style Guide

01 Editorial Principles

Five principles sit behind every specific rule in this guide. When a situation isn't covered below, decide by these.

• Usefulness over visibility. A reader should finish the piece able to do something differently on Monday. If the article's main achievement is that you were seen, it isn't ready.
• Experience over assertion. You were accepted because you've done the work. Write from what you saw, tried, and got wrong, not from what is generally said about the topic.
• Specific over sweeping. One well-documented example beats five generalisations. Numbers, timeframes, headcounts and costs make a piece credible.
• Honest about limits. Say what you don't know, where your evidence is thin, and where reasonable people disagree. Certainty is cheap; calibration is rare.
• Independent of interest. Nothing published on Fairherst is bought, traded or owed. If a piece would read differently to someone who knew your commercial position, disclose that position.

02 Formats & Word Counts

Pitch to one of these formats. Word counts are the finished, edited length. File within 10% of the target. Anything materially over is trimmed by the desk or returned.

Formats We Don't Run

Listicles, at any length. No “seven lessons”, no “five things every founder should know”, no numbered posts of any kind. If your argument only holds together as a numbered list, it isn't an argument yet. Take the strongest two or three points and write them properly.

We also don't run “predictions for next year” round-ups, interview transcripts, event recaps, product comparisons, or anything structured as an announcement.

03 Story Structure

The Opening (First 100 Words)

Open on something concrete: a moment, a decision, a number, a specific problem. Establish within two sentences why you in particular are qualified to write this, without listing your credentials; show them at work. Never open with a dictionary definition, a rhetorical question, a statistic about how much the market will be worth by 2030, or the phrase “in today's fast-paced business environment”.

The Nut Graf

By the end of the third paragraph the reader must know exactly what you are arguing and what they'll get from staying. One sentence, plainly stated. If you can't write it, the piece isn't ready.

The Body

• Three to five sections, each making one point and earning its subhead.
• Paragraphs of two to four sentences. Break up anything longer.
• Every claim followed by its evidence: an example, a number, a source, or a named experience.
• Address the strongest counter-argument somewhere in the middle. Steel-man it.
• Bullets only for genuine lists of parallel items, not as a substitute for prose.

The Close

End with the practical consequence: what a reader should do, watch for, or stop doing. Don't summarise what you just said, don't end on a question, and don't close with a call to contact you.

04 Headlines & Subheads

Submit one headline and two alternatives. The desk sets the final headline. That isn't negotiable, but a strong suggestion usually survives.

• Length: 45–65 characters. Under 60 is safest for search and social.
• Case: Sentence case. Capitalise only the first word and proper nouns.
• Specificity: Name the subject and the payoff. “How we cut onboarding from six weeks to nine days”, not “Rethinking onboarding”.
• No clickbait: no “you won't believe”, no withheld payoff, no second person imperative dressed as a secret.
• No colons stacking two vague halves: “Leadership: a new paradigm” is not a headline.
• Numbers: use figures, and only when the number is the point.

Standfirst (Deck)

Supply a 20–35 word standfirst that adds information rather than repeating the headline. It should answer “why should I read this now, from this person?”

Subheads

Use them every 250–350 words. Sentence case, descriptive rather than clever, and readable as a sequence: a reader skimming only the subheads should still follow your argument. Never use a subhead as the first element of the article.

05 Voice & Tone

Fairherst reads like a well-briefed colleague talking straight: direct, unhurried, and confident enough not to oversell. Write the way you'd explain the point to a peer who respects your time.

• First person, used sparingly. “I” and “we” are welcome when you're reporting your own experience. They are not welcome as a running commentary on your feelings about the topic.
• Active voice. Name who did the thing.
• Plain words. Use “use”, not “utilise”. Use “start”, not “commence”.
• No hype adjectives. Cut game-changing, revolutionary, cutting-edge, world-class, best-in-class, seamless, robust, holistic, synergy, leverage (as a verb), unlock, supercharge, and any sentence containing “the future of”.
• No hedging stacks. “It could arguably be said that it may perhaps”. Pick a position.
• Humour is allowed. Snark at named individuals is not.
• Second person is fine for practical guidance, but don't lecture. You're sharing what worked, not issuing instructions.

06 Grammar & Mechanics

Write in the English of your own region. A contributor based in the United States writes American English. A contributor based in the UK writes British English. We don't convert one into the other, because a piece reads as borrowed the moment its spelling doesn't match the voice telling the story.

The only hard rule is consistency: pick the one that is yours and hold it for the whole piece. Mixing conventions (“organize” in the second paragraph, “colour” in the fifth) is the single most common thing our copy desk sends back. Set your document's language before you start writing, not after.

Conventions That Vary by Region

Conventions That Apply Everywhere

Formatting Your File

• One space after a sentence, never two. Single line breaks between paragraphs.
• No manual indents, no coloured text, no custom fonts, no text boxes.
• Hyperlinks embedded on descriptive anchor text, not pasted as bare URLs.
• Use H2 for section subheads and H3 beneath them. Never skip a level.
• Do not include your headline as a H1 in the body; the CMS adds it.

07 Sourcing & Attribution

Everything asserted as fact must be traceable. You are accountable for the accuracy of every statement published under your byline, and our fact-checking is a backstop, not a substitute for your own.

• Primary sources only. Cite the original study, filing, dataset or announcement, never a blog post summarising it, and never another outlet's write-up of a report you haven't read.
• Date every figure. Market data, salary benchmarks, adoption rates and survey findings all carry a date and a publisher in the sentence or the link.
• Recency. Statistics older than three years need justification. Anything older than five is usually cut.
• Name your sources. “Research shows” and “studies suggest” are not attributions. Name the researcher or institution in the text.
• Quote accurately. Quotes are verbatim. You may cut for length with an ellipsis, but never reorder, paraphrase inside quotation marks, or clean up meaning.
• Get consent. Anyone quoted from a private conversation must have agreed to be quoted and named. If a source is anonymous, tell your editor who they are and why anonymity is warranted. We grant it rarely and describe the source's position in the text.
• Confidential information. Do not publish anything covered by an NDA, employment agreement, or client confidentiality. Anonymise former employers and clients unless you have written permission.
• Your own data. If you cite your company's internal numbers, say so, give the sample size and period, and expect your editor to ask how it was measured.

08 Links

Links exist to let a reader verify a claim or go deeper. They are not a distribution channel, and our link policy is enforced strictly because a great many people would like it not to be.

Anchor Text

Describe what the reader will get: “the Bank of England's August inflation report”, not “click here”, “this study”, or an exact-match commercial keyword. Never link the same phrase twice in one article.

09 Promotion & Conflicts of Interest

You were accepted partly because of where you work. That's an asset for the reader and a risk to the piece, and the line between the two is drawn here.

Where the Line Sits

• You may use your company as evidence: what you did, what it cost, what happened.
• You may be identified by role and company in your byline and bio.
• You may not write an article whose subject is your company, product, service, funding round, hire, award, partnership or launch.
• You may not name your product more than once, and never with a description of its features or pricing.
• You may not disparage a named competitor, or write about a market in which you are currently in litigation.
• You may not include a call to action of any kind: no “get in touch”, no “book a demo”, no newsletter plug. Your bio handles that.

Disclosure

Disclose in the article itself, not just to your editor, any of the following: an equity stake, advisory role or board seat in a company you discuss; a client or commercial relationship with a company, vendor or sector you assess; funding for research you cite; or any payment connected to the subject. A single clear sentence, placed where the reader needs it, is enough:

If you're unsure whether something needs disclosing, it does. Disclosure almost never costs you the piece; an undisclosed interest discovered after publication costs you the membership.

10 Generative AI Policy

We publish contributors for their judgement. A tool can't have judgement on your behalf, so the rules are about where the tool sits relative to your thinking.

Acceptable

• Research assistance, background reading and finding sources you then read yourself.
• Outlining, restructuring or tightening a draft you wrote.
• Grammar, spelling and readability checks.
• Transcribing your own recorded notes or interviews you conducted.

Not Acceptable

• Submitting AI-generated prose as your own writing.
• Using an AI tool as a source of facts, statistics, quotes, citations or history.
• Generating examples, anecdotes or case studies you did not experience or verify.
• AI-generated images, charts or illustrations in a submission.
• Generating your author bio, pitch or application answers.

You must be able to explain and defend every sentence published under your name. If an editor asks how you know something, “the model said so” is not an answer. Submissions that read as machine-generated are returned without an edit, and a second occurrence ends membership.

11 Images & Media

The desk sources a lead image for every article. Supply your own only where the image carries information: a chart of your data, a photograph of the thing you're describing, a diagram of your framework.

Rights

Only send images you own outright or hold a documented licence for that covers commercial editorial publication. Screenshots from other websites, images found through search, stock photos under someone else's licence and AI-generated images are all refused. If you can't name the rights-holder, don't send it.

Video, Audio and Embeds

Embeds are allowed where the media is the evidence: a public earnings call, a conference talk, a demonstration. No autoplay, no embeds from your own marketing channels, and every embed needs a one-line explanation of what the reader will find in it.

12 Byline, Bio & Headshot

• Byline: your full professional name, as you'd like it cited. One name per article; we don't run co-bylines except on commissioned features agreed in advance. Bylines are non-transferable and may not be sold, shared or credited to a company.
• Bio: 40–60 words, third person. Current role and company, one line of relevant background, and one link, to your company or your personal site, not both. No taglines, no awards lists, no “thought leader”.
• Headshot: recent, square, at least 800px, plain background, no logos and no group photos.
• Updates: tell your editor when you change roles. We update the bio; we don't retroactively change bylines on published work.

13 Search & Discoverability

Our SEO approach is unromantic: write something worth linking to, then make it easy to index. Contributors are not expected to optimise, and are expressly asked not to.

• Do pick a headline containing the words a reader would actually search.
• Do use descriptive subheads that map to real sub-questions.
• Do supply a 140–155 character meta description if you have one in mind.
• Don't repeat a keyword phrase for density; the desk removes it.
• Don't supply a keyword list, an SEO brief or a target-anchor requirement. Applications and drafts that arrive with these are declined.
• Don't ask for a specific URL slug; the desk sets it.

14 Submitting Your Draft

Pitch First

Every article starts with a pitch through the contributor portal: one paragraph on the argument, one line on why you're the person to make it, and the format you're proposing. Editors respond within three business days. Unpitched drafts are not read.

Filing

File as a Google Doc with comment access, or a .docx, to your editor by the agreed deadline. Name the file surname-topic-date. Include, in this order: proposed headline plus two alternatives, standfirst, body, any disclosure line, and your bio.

Pre-Submission Checklist

• The argument is stated in one sentence by the third paragraph.
• Word count is within 10% of the format target.
• Every factual claim has a named, dated, primary source.
• All links checked, live, and within the limits in section 08.
• No calls to action, no product descriptions, no more than one mention of your company.
• Any commercial interest is disclosed in the text.
• Quotes verified verbatim and consent obtained.
• Images cleared for rights, with captions, credits and alt text.
• Read aloud once, start to finish.
• Document language set to your region's English, and spellcheck run in it.

15 Editing & Publication

• Turnaround. Your editor returns notes within three business days of filing. Most pieces take one round of revisions; some take two.
• What we change without asking. Headlines, standfirsts, subheads, house-style corrections, link formatting, image selection, structural trims and cuts for length.
• What we check with you. Anything that changes your meaning, your argument or the strength of a claim.
• Approval. You'll see the edited version before publication and have one working day to flag factual problems. Editorial judgement calls sit with the desk.
• Scheduling. Publication dates are set by the desk against the wider editorial calendar. We can't guarantee a specific date and don't time publication to commercial events.
• Rejection after filing. A commissioned piece can still be declined if it doesn't meet the standard. We'll tell you why, and you're free to publish it elsewhere.
• Promotion. Once live, share it. We'll send you the assets. Please don't republish the full text elsewhere for 30 days.

16 Corrections & Updates

If you spot an error in your published work, or someone tells you about one, email corrections@fairherst.com the same day. Don't respond to the complainant directly and don't promise a change.

• Factual errors are corrected promptly, with a dated correction note at the foot of the article.
• Significant errors that change the meaning of a piece also carry a note at the top.
• Typos and broken links are fixed silently.
• Updates to a still-accurate piece are marked with an “Updated on [date]” line.
• Unpublishing. We don't remove accurate published articles on request, including when your circumstances change. Legal or safety issues are handled case by case.

17 What We Won't Publish

• Content published or scheduled elsewhere, in whole or substantial part.
• Press releases, launch announcements, funding news or award notices in any framing.
• Articles written or funded by a third party on a member's behalf.
• Sponsored content, advertorial, or anything with an undisclosed commercial arrangement.
• Personal attacks, unverified allegations against named individuals or companies, or defamatory claims.
• Investment, legal, tax or medical advice presented as recommendation rather than analysis.
• Content promoting specific securities, tokens or funds in which you hold a position.
• Plagiarised or improperly attributed work, including uncredited close paraphrase.
• Discriminatory, harassing or gratuitously inflammatory material.
• Anything requiring the disclosure of confidential or personal data without consent.

18 Rights & Legal

• Copyright. You keep it. You grant Fairherst a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to publish, edit, translate, distribute and syndicate the work.
• Republication. After 30 days you may republish on your own site or a channel you control, provided you credit Fairherst as the original publisher and link to the original. Republishing to another publication requires our written consent.
• Warranty. By filing, you confirm the work is original, yours, accurate to the best of your knowledge, not defamatory, and doesn't breach any confidentiality obligation or third-party right.
• Indemnity. You're responsible for claims arising from breaches of that warranty.
• Membership fee. Membership is billed monthly and may be cancelled at any time. It covers editorial support, your author page and distribution. It does not include coverage, links, placement or a lighter edit, and it is not refundable against a piece we decline.
• Fees to you. Contributed articles carry no fee. Commissioned features may carry one, agreed in writing beforehand.
• Membership. We may end a membership at any time for breach of this guide. Published work generally stays live unless it's affected by the breach.