Talent Submissions

What are the general guidelines to creating a list for Top5.com?

Creating a list around your life or work is a fairly simple process that involves coming up with a unique topic or angle that no one has covered before, and that can have elements pulled out of it which are then ranked in order of magnitude. Once you’ve ranked your points, you write about a paragraph of commentary for each that gives a little background on what the point means and why you put it there.

List Ideas We Accept:

List ideas from reputable and talented people.
YouTube personalities, reality show personalities, comedians – you name it. If you are a performer, or have some talent of renown, and have an engaging story or idea about your life and work, we want to hear from you.

List ideas that are interesting, funny or inventive.
This is your opportunity to be creative about your life and work – whether it’s a compilation of random facts or an inventive twist on the latest Hollywood scandal – we want engaging people with a strong voice and an interesting perspective on the world.

List ideas that showcase expertise in a given field.
Are you well-known in the parkour community? Are you a prolific couponing blogger? Are you a venture capitalist with an interesting spin on an industry? We’re looking for individuals with unique access and expertise when it comes to their subject matter.

List Ideas We Reject:

List ideas that are overly vague.
Sending us an email where the list idea is something like, “5 Interesting Things About Cars,” “5 Cool Cartoon Characters,” or any idea that doesn’t have an interesting spin on a popular subject then we’re probably not going to consider it.

Better examples based on the above would be, “5 Crazy Luxury Options on Cars,” “Top 5 Most Offensive Looney Tunes Characters.” These are non-vague, engaging, and interesting spins on “5 Interesting Things About Cars,” “5 Cool Cartoon Characters.”

List ideas that are created for commercial or sales purposes only.
If you submit an idea for a list of your “5 Favorite Payday Loan Companies,” your “5 Favorite Male Enhancement Drugs,” “5 Reasons People Should Read or Buy My E-Book,” or just about any list idea that ultimately coincides with some sort of affiliate payout then don’t expect a response from us.

List ideas that are for SEO purposes only.
The Top5.com team is very familiar with the most up-to-date SEO practices and can spot someone who is only trying to submit a list for a link or two back to their site. We will, however, link to interesting individuals’ websites, YouTube channels, and social profiles of people who are creating quality work and not creating content for the simple purpose of trying to beat a search algorithm.

Disclaimer:

If we show interest in your list idea and ask you to write it, Top5.com is under no obligation to publish your list if any part of the content doesn’t meet our guidelines.

You represent and warrant that you own all content you submit to Top5.com and its subdomains (“the Services”), including but not limited to profile information, reviews, images, messages, and any other materials (“Talent Submitted Content”). By submitting Talent Submitted Content you hereby irrevocably grant us a perpetual, world-wide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable license and right to use Talent Submitted Content for any purpose and in any media now existing or in the future. You also irrevocably grant the users of the Services and third party websites, mobile applications and other platforms who obtained Talent Submitted Content from us (“Third Party Properties”) the same right you have granted to us herein to use Talent Submitted Content in connection with their use of the Services and Third Party Properties. By “use” we mean use, copy, display, distribute, modify, translate, reformat, incorporate into advertisements and other works, promote, create derivative works, and in the case of Third Party Properties, allow their users and others to do the same.