Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Write an Article for GeekTonic! Looking for Guest-Submitted Articles at GeekTonic

Something I've been wanting to do for a while now is begin accepting articles from others here at GeekTonic.

I'd love to feature new voices with something relevant to GeekTonic Readers to share with everyone.

I've not had any takers since first introducing the idea earlier this year so I thought I'd mention it again and describe what I'm looking for in a little more detail and provide some guidelines as well.

I'm looking forward to hearing from anyone out there who wants to share their story, review or anything related on GeekTonic.

To get started with this, I thought I'd talk about what I'm looking for and some basic guidelines for guest posts:

Make it Relevant and Useful to GeekTonic Readers

Knowing what GeekTonic strives to focus on is important.  GeekTonic focuses on HTPCs, Media Centers, Media Gadgets such as MP3 Players, DVD Players, Blu-Ray, Online Streaming and Sharing such as music videos and/or photos, video gadgets or pretty much any related device or application in this category.  Regarding HTPC articles - I know SageTV and BeyondTV pretty well, but would love to see guest articles about those two HTPC applications or really any others as well - bring on some Vista Media Center, XBMC, GBPVR, Media Portal, Meedio/s, or any other HTPC applicatoins.  If you're not sure don't hesitate to ask me.

Going farther on the "useful" point:  Do you have something related that’s difficult for most people but comes fairly easily to you?  Is there something you've spent a lot of time mastering?  Again this would typically be beneficial to GeekTonic readers and probably something they care about.


Make it relatively Well-Written

I definitely do not have a great mastery of the English Language - especially when it comes to writing.  Just ask my wife who often points out gramatical or worse errors (did I just make another one) when writing posts for GeekTonic.  I'm not asking for much here, but make it understandable and as good as possible.  I'll sometimes edit it when I see a spelling or obvious gramatical error and let the writer know before posting, but otherwise it should be fine.

If you have a useful, relevant and well-written post, what’s the next step?

Email me via the contact form and let me know what you’d like to write about and why you think it’s a good fit. If you already have a draft you could send that to me as well (I'll send you an e-mail once I've heard from you via the contact form.)  If you blog on another blog let me know that -

I'd love to have guest bloggers whether they already write for another blog or not, but if you do, I'll link to that blog when I post your blog post.

What is in it for Me?

Well, honestly I don't make anything from this blog - I pretty much burn any ad revenue right back into giveaways, shipping, overhead costs etc. so the pay is really bad (read no $ benefit).  But, it does get you exposure if you're a blogger, it does get you started if you're interested in this sort of thing and it allows you to share with others what you know without much time invested.  To me the biggest benefit of sharing on GeekTonic is being able to share with others what I know and love.  It's a great experience and has helped me develop some very good online friends with similar interests.

If you're interested let me know by sending me an e-mail via the comment form.  I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon. 

Thanks!
Brent of GeekTonic

Note:  Thanks to CopyBlogger for the ideas on the guest-writer guidelines