A company built for storytellers that does not employ any produces exactly the product you would expect. So we hire writers, and not as a gesture — the worldbuilding, the editorial work, the anthology reading and a good deal of what appears on this site is done by people who came in through an open application.
That application is unusual in one respect worth explaining, because it changes how you should approach it: it is not attached to a vacancy. There is no list of open roles to match yourself against. You tell us what you make, we keep it, and engagements are matched to people rather than people to postings.
This is what actually comes up, what a strong application contains, and what happens after you send one. It sits under how to make money as a writer on CanonBoard, which maps the other paid routes here — including the ones you can start without us.
The work that actually comes up
**Worldbuilding and story consulting.** Working on worlds — ours, and sometimes those of teams we work with. Structural rather than prose work a lot of the time: what is load-bearing, what contradicts what, what a world needs before anyone can write in it.
**Editorial.** Reading, selecting, and shaping. The SANDBOX anthology is the most regular source of this, and it runs continuously once volumes are in motion.
**Writing for the platform.** The long-form guides, the product material, the programme copy. This is craft writing about craft, and it rewards people who have actually done the thing they are describing.
**Narrative design and game writing.** Less frequent, more specialised, and worth applying for even when nothing is live, because when it is live it moves fast.
**Illustration and art.** We work with artists as well as writers, most often around programmes and world material.
The common thread is that all of it assumes you know what a story is made of. None of it is content production by the yard, and applications built around volume and turnaround time are usually a poor fit even when the work is excellent.
What a strong application contains
The form is four short steps and takes about a minute up to the last one. Only three things are actually required: your name, your email, and the final answer. Everything else is optional and exists to give us more to work with.
**Show work, do not describe it.** One link to something we can read is worth several paragraphs about your range. A portfolio, a published piece, a reel, a Substack, a PDF. If you have one thing you are proud of and four things you are not, send the one — a strong sample followed by weak ones reads as weaker than the strong one alone.
**Be specific about your craft.** "Writer" tells us nothing we can act on. "Comics writer, mostly horror, six issues out with a small press" tells us what to think of when the right thing appears.
**Say how you want to work.** Full-time, part-time, freelance, or just exploring — all four are real answers and none of them costs you anything. "Just exploring" is a legitimate thing to select and we would rather know.
**Then the last field.** It asks why you want to work with CanonBoard, and it is the part that is read twice. The applications that land are the ones that are concrete about what the person makes and honest about what they want out of it. The ones that do not are the ones that could have been sent to any company with a careers page.
What happens after you send it
It is read. Not screened by a filter, not scored — read, by someone whose job includes reading them.
Then it is kept. This is the part worth understanding, because it changes whether applying now is worthwhile when nothing is advertised: most engagements start from an application that arrived months earlier. When a piece of work appears, the first thing that happens is that someone goes through what is on file. An application sent today is in that pile for a long time.
You will not always hear back quickly, and we would rather say that than pretend otherwise. Silence is not a decision — the volume is real and the matching is occasional by nature.
There is one opt-in worth ticking on the way through: it puts you on the list for new opportunities to work with us, alongside product news. If the whole premise is that work appears later, being reachable when it does is the practical version of the point above.
The routes that do not need us to say yes
It is worth being straight about the ceiling here: we are one company, engagements are occasional, and the number of writers who would be good at this work exceeds the amount of work by a wide margin. Treating an application as a plan is a bad plan.
The routes on this platform that do not require anyone's approval are the more dependable ones for most people, and they run in parallel. Opening a **Board** — publishing a project and letting readers back the pitches they want to see become canon — costs nothing, works on every plan, and is limited by your audience rather than by our hiring. That is running a Board that earns.
The **affiliate programme** pays 30 percent recurring commission on subscriptions you refer, for as long as they stay subscribed, and requires a Pro subscription rather than an interview. That is affiliate income for writers.
And if what you want specifically is editorial standing, **hosting a SANDBOX volume** is the narrowest and most interesting door: hosting a SANDBOX volume.
Apply anyway. It costs a minute, it stays on file, and it has no downside. But run the other routes while you wait, because they are the ones you control.
Apply through the jobs page, or start with the full map in how to make money as a writer on CanonBoard.
Frequently asked questions
- What kind of work does CanonBoard hire writers for?
- Worldbuilding and story consulting, editorial work, writing for the platform and its programmes, narrative design, and the reading and curation the SANDBOX anthology needs. Some engagements are one-off and project-shaped, some recur. We also work with illustrators and artists. Shape and terms are agreed per engagement rather than posted as fixed roles, because the useful version of this is matching what someone actually makes to what we actually need.
- Is there a list of open positions?
- No, deliberately. The jobs page is an open application rather than a vacancy board: you tell us your craft, your experience, how you would like to work, and you show us something you have made. We read every one and keep them on file. In practice the majority of engagements begin with an application that arrived before the work existed, which is a good argument for applying when you have nothing specific in mind.
- What makes an application stand out?
- Work over description. A portfolio, a sample, a reel, a published piece — anything we can read — does more than any account of your experience, and one strong link beats five weak ones. After that it is the final field, which asks why you want to work with us; it is the part that is read twice, and the applications that land are specific about what they make and unembarrassed about what they want.
- How long does the application take?
- About a minute for the first three steps, which are name, craft and links, and as long as you want to spend on the fourth. Nothing except your name, email and that final answer is required — the rest is optional and exists to give us more to go on, not to filter you out for leaving it blank.
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