The Knot Needs You

Submissions, contributions, journalists, content creators and being on your press list.

It’s been a strong start for The Knot. 930 subscribers in just over a month, mainly through word of mouth and relentless posting on my LinkedIn. I’m delighted with the response and the engagement. Thank you.

Each post receives well over 1,000 reads and every issue has had positive feedback so far. People have told me it’s refreshing and “it’s good to finally see some good news about the place”.

The absolute focus is to continue championing the good stuff that is going on and I can’t do that alone. The good news is, there’s too much good news for one person alone to cover.

The Knot needs your help. I can’t build a viable alternative source of good quality news all by myself. I can’t write thoroughly enough on everything. I’m just one person with one perspective. 

In the knot too distant future…

My vision is to have a team of writers and content creators who I both commission work to and take submissions from. The foundation of The Knot will be our written pieces that go directly to people’s email inboxes and the evolution will be that each piece will have a short-form video version to it that gives a high level overview on social media. We’ll leave crime, traffic and sport to SOT Live for now, longer term I’d like to have contributors that take these topics on too though. I’m leaving business news in the very capable hands of Daily Focus.

The business model is currently running on energy, mine right now. I am not currently making any money from The Knot, therefore all writers, contributors and content creators that we work with initially will believe in the future of The Knot and be ok with credit in return for their work. Everyone contributing will be credited across The Knot and I hope this coverage may lead to other opportunities for the people we get to work with. I hope that we can create a sustainable business model that means creators are then well paid for their work. 

Initially I would like to meet and connect with:

• Writers and journalists.

• Social media content creators. You make reels and short-form video content for social media.

• Photographers.

• Social media managers. You have built and/or manages a social media account with 5,000+ followers.

The topics and areas I want to cover and the people I’d like to cover them are:

• What’s on and things to do. Individuals to source and curate events. Creators to go to events and “vlog” them for social media.

• Food. Writers and creators to blog/vlog recommendations of Stoke/Staffs based places to go out and eat. 

• Spotlight. Writers for features on interesting and inspiring role models.

• Thought pieces/long reads/in-depth journalism. Journalists who’d like to write feature pieces of 1000 words+ on important topics that are nuanced and complex and need a close look. 

The criteria right now is:

• You resonate with the mission of The Knot.

• You want to create content that champions and challenges Stoke and Staffordshire.

• You are based in Stoke and Staffordshire.

• You’re willing to take direction on topics to be covered.

• You’re willing to submit ideas for topics we should cover.

• You’re ok that we can’t pay you for your work right now, but will credit you on social media for your contributions to The Knot.

Working with businesses/organisations

If you have something to share with The Knot, please e-mail james@theknot.group. If you are a business, please feel free to add this email to your press list. We’ll cover what we can and what we think is relevant. Our vetting right now is making sure we highlight projects or news that: a) have a collective benefit across Stoke and Staffordshire, b) are new or c) elevate the profile of the region.

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If you’re interested in contributing to The Knot in some way, respond to this email with what you’d like to contribute and which area interests you.

Until then, I’ll see you Monday at 8am for The Knot 006.

Cheers,

James