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Serverless Writer’s Guide

Use this Serverless Writer’s Guide as a resource to help you get started contributing to the Serverless Blog. This guide includes suggested topics, sample outlines, example posts, helpful links & more!

Content Guidelines

  • focus on results (our readers are interested in hearing about how serverless allowed you to deliver something great)
  • focus on serverless and event-driven themes (faster time to market, lowest total cost of ownership, microservice architectures, reactive/event-driven design patterns, data as events
  • focus on learnings (it’s still early days for serverless and people want learn from others, especially around operations, as much as possible)
  • provide code examples or tutorials when possible (our audience is technical and likes to get hands on)
  • no overt product pitches, these aren’t received well by our audience and will no be published on our blog

Suggested Topics

  • Serverless or Event-Driven Architectures
  • Serverless Framework How-To posts or tutorials
  • Answering forum questions
  • Startup/Company Culture
  • Meetup, Conference, Event Recaps
  • Developer Community
  • What you’re learning/working on
  • TL;DR
  • Serverless Weekly Recap
  • Asking for feedback
  • Deep dive for new features
  • Office Hours/Q&A
  • Modern Javascript tips, tricks, How To's and tutorials
  • Amazon Web Services + Lambda tutorials, case studies, and How To guides
  • Microsoft Azure tutorials, case studies, and How To guides
  • Google Cloud Functions tutorials, case studies, and How To guides
  • OpenWhisk tutorials, case studies, and How To guides
  • Microservices
  • FaaS, PaaS
  • General developer tips & tricks
  • Expert interviews

Choosing A Topic

The Serverless team can find a list of ideas along with a schedule in the Content Calendar in Asana. The Serverless team gets first dibs on selecting topics, then we turn to guest authors. Posts are scheduled 1-6 weeks in advance.

Creating an Outline

It’s helpful to organize your ideas in an outline before you start writing. Your outline will depend on the type of post you’re writing, but here are a few prompts to get you started.

Note: These are just suggestions. Feel free to amend to fit your needs.

Generic Outline

  • Introduction - What are you writing about and why? Tell the reader what they can expect to learn or gain if they continue reading. Be clear and concise. This is your chance to convince the reader that it’s worth their time to keep going.
  • Body - Divide into sections that make sense. You can divide the body into paragraphs, steps, phases, or a list. Adding subheadings helps to break up the content and makes it easier for readers to scan your content.
  • Conclusion - Tie everything together by recapping what you’ve talked about and sharing any relevant next steps. This would also be a great place to include any additional related resources you’d like to share.

Writing about a Project

  • What problem did you set out to solve with your project?
  • What was the benefit of using serverless architecture?
  • Walk us through your process and architecture, including code.
  • Share any relevant lessons learned.
  • Share your vision for the future of your project/next steps.
  • Feel free to include anything else you think is useful/relevant for the post.

How-To Post

  • Introduction - What will readers be able to accomplish after reading this post? What makes you a credible source of information about this topic? (i.e., a core framework developer writing about a new feature, or the operations manager writing about the lean startup method)
  • Steps - Break your process down into individual steps that are clearly labeled. Each step should be one complete thought or action. Include relevant screenshots or code snippets as needed.
  • Conclusion - Recap your process and include any relevant next steps or additional resources.

Event Recap

  • Introduction - Provide background info on the event. What is it?
  • Lessons Learned - Write a list of Lessons Learned or Takeaways from your experience at the event.
  • Conclusion - What are you going to do with these takeaways? How can readers use this information to their benefit?

Serverless Style Guide

Please follow these guidelines when writing content for the Serverless blog or social media posts in order to present a consistent voice.

  • Only 1 space after a period or colon.
  • Capitalize the first letter in every sentence.
  • Use clear, concise language and short sentences.
  • Use contractions. (i.e., we’re vs. we are)
  • Use a conversational tone that’s familiar, but not informal. (Here’s a great example)
  • Include external links in blog posts.
  • Include at least one image.

Example Posts

Check out the following examples for writing inspiration:

Posting on GitHub

You can post your draft to the Serverless blog repo for editing and review.

Please add your author file along with your post. This will include links to your GitHub, Twitter, personal or company website, in addition to a short and long bio. Your photo will be your GitHub avatar

Writing Resources

Check out these additional resources for more tips and tools to help you produce great content: