Thanks on your curiosity in turning into a contributing author for the Personalwp Weblog! Our writers are designers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists, and inventive folks from world wide. That is our information for writers.
Half 1: What's Personalwp?
Personalwp is a inventive ecosystem of websites and providers for digital property and inventive folks.
We prefer to say that we ‘make inventive concepts come to life.’ Right here’s what which means:
- Personalwp Market is our assortment of marketplaces the place inventive folks world wide promote digital property – together with WordPress themes, code, video templates, inventory music, pictures, paintings, and extra.
- Personalwp Elements is our latest product: a subscription-based market for design property.
- Personalwp Tuts+ is the training hub for the Personalwp group, with over 21,000 free how-to tutorials.
- Personalwp Studio is a spot to attach with freelancers for customized inventive and technical providers, akin to brand design, content material writing, app manufacturing, and extra.
The Personalwp Weblog is our publication about creativity & design.
Searching for inventive inspiration and design insights from our group? The Personalwp Weblog is the place we share our greatest insights, assets, design suggestions, and tales.
We work with writers from world wide, and we’re all the time seeking to develop and diversify the voices that contribute to our web site. The Personalwp weblog covers a various vary of subjects on every thing design, net improvement, creativity, expertise, WordPress, and freelancing/entrepreneurship.
Listed here are some examples of article subjects we write about:
- New and distinctive traits in net design and graphic design
- Something WordPress and net improvement
- Articles associated to inventive tasks and pursuits, akin to video-making or audio
- Tales associated to freelancing, entrepreneurship, or variety in tech & design
- On-line studying and assets for being a greater inventive
Half 2: Some fundamental guidelines of writing
This part falls someplace between a method information and common writing recommendation. Right here’s 5 concepts to verify your writing towards:
1. Be fascinating and unique
I'll publish an article solely when I've one thing necessary to say. – Ali Mese, How to Start a Blog in the Most Cluttered Marketplace in History
Write one thing fascinating. The world of design-writing is a loud one – please give us an concept that we haven’t heard earlier than! We’re in search of concepts that haven’t already been written about extensively on different websites.
This sounds apparent, however we’ll say it in any case: write one thing that you simply’d really wish to learn. We additionally (typically) don’t republish articles from different websites.
2. Be correct, good, and helpful
“First, is it true? Second, is it type? Third, is it needed?” – Sathya Sai Baba, or Rumi, or Buddha
The origin of this quote is unclear, however the message is easy: ask your self if what you’re saying is true, type, and needed. Whereas that is typically utilized to conversations and private relationships, I feel it’s additionally simply as related in writing.
Ensure your data is factually correct and serves a goal for the reader. And please, write with kindness – there’s loads of house for imply writing, however the Personalwp Weblog isn’t one among them (I’m not involved in a pitch on the ‘ugliest web site designs,’ or comparable concepts).
three. Be real
“If somebody cares extra about what their trade friends consider them than the issues they're fixing, they’re a bullshitter.” – Sean Blanda, The Creative World’s Bullshit Industrial Complex
Are you aware sufficient in regards to the matter you’re writing about to creator an article about it? In case you’re solely writing to raise your individual standing, please pitch your tales elsewhere. As an editor, I’m not involved in ‘thought leaders’ or ‘influencers’, and I don’t care what number of Twitter followers you could have. I solely care in case your concept is an effective one.
On that be aware, please don't ship pitches for those who’re simply in search of backlinks or self-promotion.
four. Be concise
“Write the very best story which you could and write it as straight as you'll be able to.” – Ernest Hemingway
State your concept within the easiest way potential. Don’t ‘bury the lead’ – discuss your strongest concepts first. We don’t fee by phrase rely for the Personalwp Weblog, as a result of high quality > amount.
Unsure in case your writing would move the check for conciseness? I’d advocate working your writing by means of the Hemingway App, a really helpful net app that assigns a ‘readability rating’ and identifies dense sentences, passive phrases, weak adverbs, and different writing crimson flags.
5. Be accessible
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” – H. L. Mencken, journalist & editor
One other typically misquoted line, which is particularly related for the world of net design writing. We don’t draw back from advanced subjects on the Personalwp Weblog, however sense-check your writing to verify it may be understood by the common reader. Ensure your tone is pleasant . Keep away from jargon-y phrases, acronyms, or ‘insider’ language.
Ensure your writing is inclusive. This implies listening to particulars in your writing, and never assuming the gender of your reader. In examples, keep on with gender-neutral pronouns (‘their’ as a substitute of ‘his’).
Half three: A really transient fashion information
We haven’t written an intensive fashion information for the Personalwp Weblog, and that’s as a result of there’s sufficient on the market to reference with out writing our personal. Right here’s a number of pages to learn by means of or bookmark:
- For Personalwp-specific questions: the Personalwp Tuts+ Style Guide. Along with voice and tone pointers, it additionally has notes on Personalwp phrases and branding.
- For grammar: The Associated Press (AP) Style Guide format is a dependable supply. Grammar Girl is one other nice on-line useful resource for particular questions on grammar and elegance.
- For Medium: A style guide for writing on Medium, from freecodecamp. That is the very best Medium fashion information I’ve discovered – significantly for Medium-specific questions, like picture placement and textual content formatting.
Some guidelines we observe on the Personalwp Weblog:
- American English. Favourite, coloration, heart, internationalization (vs. favorite, color, centre, internationalisation). Needless to say you’re writing for a world viewers – this implies being conscious of cultural variations, and citing research/examples outdoors of only one area.
- Title-case article titles. There’s even this helpful web tool that may convert your titles to title-case for you!
- Capitalization of Personalwp marketplaces: Our market names ought to be written as ThemeForest, VideoHive, AudioJungle, CodeCanyon, GraphicRiver, 3DOcean. Our merchandise ought to all the time embrace ‘Personalwp’ within the identify (Personalwp Components, not simply Components). When doubtful, verify the word list.
Half four: A step-by-step guidelines for pitching a narrative
A step-by-step information to our course of for brand new writers:
Step 1: Develop your article concept
What do you wish to write about? Typically, our articles fall into these codecs:
- Inspirational/idea-driven: First-person narrative tales about an expertise, a topic, or an trade idea. These ought to be private, conversational, and thought-provoking.
- Informational: A dive into a selected matter, with the intent to supply assets for the inventive group
- Record-style: An article damaged down into checklist kind as a useful resource for our group. Needless to say lists should not reserved solely for product round-up fashion articles; think about using this construction for alternate subjects, as properly (for instance, “eight Classes I Discovered as a Freelancer”).
- Case research or inside-design processes: a deeper dive right into a challenge or course of associated to design.
An ordinary article is normally about 700-1600 phrases in size, however there’s no set requirement. We pay by article sort, not by phrase rely.
Step 2: Ship us a pitch on your story
When you’re prepared, ship a brief pitch to editor@personalwp.com.
Embrace your identify, a little bit of details about your self, and hyperlinks to any printed writing.
Step three: Writing
If we expect your article concept is an effective match for publication on the Personalwp Weblog, we’ll be in contact with additional notes and a primary draft date.
Some writing pointers and helpful instruments:
- For photos: All photos ought to be 760px vast. Function photos ought to be 1200px vast. Ensure your photos are correctly attributed, and that you've permission to make use of the picture. You should use something from Personalwp Elements, which incorporates stock photos, graphics, and illustrations– simply present the hyperlink to the picture or asset so we are able to swap it with the non-watermarked model.
- For screenshots: In case you’re writing a couple of web site, Full Page Screen Capture is a useful Chrome extension.
- For GIFs: This free Video to GIF converter is an easy means so as to add some animation to your article.
- For writing: Take a look at writing app Ulysses, or define your concepts in WriteMapper.
- For making your writing higher: Run your first draft by means of the Hemingway App. Goal for a rating of eight – 10. Grammarly is nice, too.
Step four: Enhancing
We’ll will work with you to develop your article concept and make your writing shine. Share the primary draft of your article with our editor through Google Drive by the predetermined draft deadline. With this, make sure to embrace:
- Any images you’d like to incorporate within the article (please solely use images you could have the suitable permissions to make use of!)
- A transparent, skilled photograph on your creator bio
- A number of sentences about you on your bio, written in third individual. Be happy to hyperlink to your Twitter account, web site, or different areas, however hold it at 1-2 hyperlinks whole. Usually, please embrace your identify, job title, and some pursuits (private or skilled).
Step 5: Publication
After the enhancing course of, we’ll publish your article on our weblog (hooray!). From there, we’ll shout it from the rooftops (through social media and our communication channels, the place related). We encourage you to share your submit by yourself social networks – tag us within the submit, so we all know the place to search out you!
Talking of social media, you could find us @personalwp on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Medium.
Step 6: Re-publishing on Medium
That is an optionally available step, however one we’d encourage: republish your article on Medium. Personalwp has a Medium publication, and by republishing your article on our Medium publication, you’ll attain new audiences (in addition to add to your private writing portfolio on Medium). To do that, you’ll want a Medium account – we’ll add you as a author to our publication.
Questions? E mail: editor@personalwp.com.
This information was initially printed in April 2017, and has been up to date in October 2017.
