Guest post submissions and comments

Integrations & API
1

Hey everyone, I’m currently working on a tool for publishers to accept guest author submissions for their Ghost site.

The initial flow I’m working on is:

  • Guest authors will be able to create posts using the Ghost editor
  • Editors can then review and leave comments on the submissions
  • Finally, when they’re happy, editors can publish the post directly to their Ghost blog.

I’m currently looking for private beta testers who would be interested in giving it a go and providing their feedback.

Please reply below or DM me if you’re interested!

1 Like
2

I’d like to understand more about the process on signing-up guest authors, as I don’t want spam content created as this is a maintenance overhead.

Currently, guest authors contact me via a form, and if I’m satisfied, I set them up as a contributor. From this point, everything is handled in Ghost.

3

So my current thinking is that you will be able to share a link with guest authors where they will be able to sign up and write their articles in a separate tool dedicated to reviewing and commenting on posts. That way there is a clear separation between guest posts to review and the rest of your site.

So in your case I imagine once they’ve contacted you via form you would then share your link with them rather than creating them an account in Ghost.

Do you find it useful though for guest authors to have contributor accounts in Ghost for any reason other than writing articles (once you’ve vetted them)?

4

Once I’ve approved a guest post contribution proposal, I send an invite from Ghost. This is for the Contributor role, i.e., staff member, since I maintain full editorial control, and publish posts.

I would prefer to do this is Ghost since the copy is in its final format, any changes made are seen and approved quickly. When I used WordPress, I was constantly fixing line breaks, links, and images because of cutting and pasting.

The benefit of a staff account is that author bio and author page are built-in.

5

Yeah, so users would be editing the posts in the native Ghost format (mobiledoc) using the Ghost API so there wouldn’t be any discrepancies or touching up needed when publishing.

It would just have the additional ability to add and view comments on the posts.

Yeah, that makes sense. If the tool completely uses Ghost’s account system would that work for you?

6

This could be a useful addition.

Yes, this is important to me.

7

I am very interested in this feature

8

Hey Tejas, I’ve actually built an MVP commenting tool that lets you leave comments on posts within the Ghost editor itself (using a browser extension) and I’m currently looking for customers to try it out,

I’d love to chat more to see if it would be useful for you. Could you email me at sgrowe@live.co.uk with a little bit of info on the issues with your current set up/workflow so we can discuss further. Thanks!

12

Hey @sam.r I would love to test this feature. Please let me know.

13

I’m not sure if @sam.r is still around. His account looks pretty inactive.

If you want commenting on drafts, I’ve got a blog about using hypothes.is to do that, along with some other editorial workflow thoughts. Here’s a link:

14

Hey! Your project sounds like a great tool for streamlining guest author submissions on Ghost sites. I’d be interested in this and providing feedback. Please count me in! Looking forward to seeing how this evolves.

Thanks!