Third-Party Content Guidelines

When TheChocolate receives an inquiry from a freelancer or other individuals, we will link to this page.

We will only respond to continued outreach from individuals who show they have read, understand, and accept, these guidelines,

TheChocolateLife does entertain inquiries from entities that use an agency email address and there is an active website associated with the email domain.

A member of TheChocolateLife staff will perform due diligence on the agency. All inquiries are subject to the following guidelines.

Reseller pricing is not available. TheChocolateLife does not allow agencies to prospect or contract for content development on its behalf.

TheChocolateLife reserves the right to maintain a balance between self-produced and third-party content.

TheChocolateLife will publish no more than one Guest Post or Link per week from all requestors. Preference will be given to agencies.

Guest posts written by a third party and posts with inserted third-party links will be identified as “Sponsored.”

This is non-negotiable.

TheChocolateLife will not publish links served by third-party ad servers and those using URL forwarding services such as bit.ly. All links must be fully qualified and will be tested before approval is given.

By default, the hosting software TheChocolateLife uses appends:

"/?ref=thechocolatelife.com"

on the outbound link. It is up to the destination site to handle this properly. TheChocolateLife is not able to change this behavior on a link-by-link basis.

To be considered for publication, the following information MUST be provided in advance.

•) If for a guest post, the proposed title;
•) The name of the post or link’s Sponsor (the client) and website URL;
•) For posts or links, the requested URL(s) to be inserted;
•) For links, the URL of the page for the link insertion.

By default, all outbound links on TheChocolateLife are Do-Follow.

A member of TheChocolateLife staff will examine EXIF data in any included media to look for any information that might be in the media that could be used for tracking purposes.

Third parties must agree to indemnify TheChocolateLife against DMCA and all other claims made against content provided to TheChocolateLife. By submitting content to TheChocolateLife, a third party is certifying they own or have been assigned all necessary rights for TheChocolateLife to publish it.

Clients will be given the opportunity to approve what goes live before it is published on TheChocolateLife except where such client approval requires the post be live.

TheChocolateLife reserves all rights to make final editorial decisions over all supplied content, irrespective of type and file format.

Prices listed below are minimums.

TheChocolateLife does not entertain inquiries – especially from freelancers and other individuals with no agency affiliation – that ask for reduced pricing. TheChocolateLife will only entertain requests for reduced pricing until a minimum of three transactions has been successfully completed.

The starting price for a basic (no upcharge features) Guest Post on TheChocolateLife is $50. The actual price will be dependent on the number of content upcharges requested. POA.

To be considered for publication, the following information MUST be provided in advance:

a) The title of the post;
b) An excerpt of no more than 300 characters (for search engines);
c) The text itself;
d) All outbound URLs;
e) At least one image, one of which is exactly 1920x1080 (landscape) pixels that will be used for the featured/hero position with attribution information and alt-text; and
f) The name of the post’s Sponsor (your client).

For SEO purposes, a minimum of 300 words is required. Because it is important that members and visitors find the information on TheChocolateLfe useful without having to leave the site, the suggested length is 500-700 words.

Posts over 1000 words in length will be subject to an upcharge.

By default, posts on TheChocolateLife are not deleted (or unpublished) and a permalink is generated upon publication.

Posts can be unpublished and deleted after a time set by the client, if desired. There is no upcharge for unpublishing a post.

TheChocolateLife uses the Ghost platform. Any content type that is supported by Ghost can be considered, though publication may require an upcharge.

One image in the body of the post is included in the basic price. The size will be adjusted to fit the layout. Additional images will be subject to a per-image upcharge to a maximum of nine images per post. A lightbox/gallery format is the default display, even for one image.

YouTube and Vimeo URLs are supported by Ghost, and Ghost does have a native video player. Adding video to a post requires an upcharge; use of the native player requires covering the cost of storage and bandwidth.

Spotify and Soundcloud URLs are supported by Ghost, and Ghost does have a native audio player. Adding audio to a post requires an upcharge; use of the native player requires covering the cost of storage and bandwidth.

There is an HTML object in Ghost that can be used to embed Instagram posts and other content. Requests for including HTML content are subject to a code review.

Ghost supports a Product object which consists of an image, a title, text, a call to action, and a URL. Adding these to a post will be subject to an upcharge.

If you are interested in a reciprocal no-cost RECIPROCAL link share, you must provide the URL of the post on TheChocolateLife you want the link added to AND the URL of the post on the site where the reciprocal link will be placed to be considered.

The reciprocal linking MUST be approved in advance before the link to TheChocolateLife is placed on the third-party site.

TheChocolateLife does not insert links that ignore context. If you are interested in a link insertion you must provide the following to be considered:

•) The URL of the post on TheChocolateLife in which the link is to be inserted;
•) The text the link will be embedded in (the location of the text and the link destination must make sense in context with the surrounding text to be considered);
•) The destination URL; and
•) The sponsor (client).

TheChocolateLife’s editorial team will consider suggestions for altering the existing text of a post to accommodate a link. Any changes in the original text of a post are at the sole discretion of TheChocolateLife.

The minimum price for a non-reciprocal (outbound) links is $25.

TheChocolateLife only runs advertising for festivals, conferences, and classes from third parties.

Creative is accepted in 728x90 (IAB Leaderboard) and 360x150 formats.

.JPG files are preferred but other formats are supported by our ad server (Revive). and may incur an upcharge to run.

Up to three pieces of creative can be in rotation per campaign at a time. By default, creative can be updated once per month. More frequent update schedules are available for an additional fee.

The minimum length for a campaign is one month (30 days). There is no maximum campaign length and we recommend changing creative monthly.

TheChocolateLife limits the number of campaigns running in a zone to five.

Most campaigns on TheChocolateLife run on a flat fee, no delivery cap, basis. Performance-based pricing (CPC and CPA) is an option for some advertisers upon request.

Reports can be generated as often as weekly and are emailed directly to the advertiser contact.

There are no performance guarantees. The only mechanism for makeup is to extend the campaign.

The starting price for basic advertising campaigns (up to three pieces of creative updated once per month) is $50/month. Non-profits and educational institutions may be eligible for discounts. POA.

All prices quotes are in $USD.

TheChocolateLife’s preferred payment processor is, Stripe. TheChocolateLife can also accept payments via PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, and other platforms via @UserNames.

TheChocolateLife will not provide personal or business details that can be used for identity theft to unverified persons or agencies.

Guest Posts and Links: Payment is required in full upon acceptance.

Advertising: For campaigns running three months or less, payment is due in full before the start of the campaign. For campaigns running three months or longer, payment for the first three months is due before the start of the campaign, with future periods billed monthly.

Send email to advertising@thechocolatelife.com. You can comment publicly, below, if you are a member of TheChocolateLife.