Thanks in your curiosity in changing into a contributing author for the Presswp Weblog! Our writers are designers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists, and artistic individuals from world wide. That is our information for writers.
Half 1: What's Presswp?
Presswp is a artistic ecosystem of websites and providers for digital property and artistic individuals.
We wish to say that we ‘make artistic concepts come to life.’ Right here’s what which means:
- Presswp Market is our assortment of marketplaces the place artistic individuals world wide promote digital property – together with WordPress themes, code, video templates, inventory music, images, paintings, and extra.
- Presswp Elements is our latest product: a subscription-based market for design property.
- Presswp Tuts+ is the training hub for the Presswp neighborhood, with over 21,000 free how-to tutorials.
- Presswp Studio is a spot to attach with freelancers for customized artistic and technical providers, reminiscent of brand design, content material writing, app manufacturing, and extra.
The Presswp Weblog is our publication about creativity & design.
Searching for artistic inspiration and design insights from our neighborhood? The Presswp Weblog is the place we share our greatest insights, assets, design suggestions, and tales.
We work with writers from world wide, and we’re at all times seeking to develop and diversify the voices that contribute to our web site. The Presswp weblog covers a various vary of matters on every little thing design, internet growth, creativity, expertise, WordPress, and freelancing/entrepreneurship.
Listed below are some examples of article matters we write about:
- New and distinctive traits in internet design and graphic design
- Something WordPress and internet growth
- Articles associated to artistic tasks and pursuits, reminiscent of video-making or audio
- Tales associated to freelancing, entrepreneurship, or range in tech & design
- On-line studying and assets for being a greater artistic
Half 2: Some fundamental guidelines of writing
This part falls someplace between a method information and normal writing recommendation. Right here’s 5 concepts to verify your writing in opposition to:
1. Be attention-grabbing 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 attention-grabbing. 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 just’d really need to learn. We additionally (usually) don’t republish articles from different websites.
2. Be correct, good, and helpful
“First, is it true? Second, is it type? Third, is it obligatory?” – Sathya Sai Baba, or Rumi, or Buddha
The origin of this quote is unclear, however the message is straightforward: ask your self if what you’re saying is true, type, and obligatory. Whereas that is usually utilized to conversations and private relationships, I believe it’s additionally simply as related in writing.
Ensure your info 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 Presswp Weblog isn’t certainly one of them (I’m not all for 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
Have you learnt sufficient in regards to the subject you’re writing about to writer an article about it? Should you’re solely writing to raise your personal standing, please pitch your tales elsewhere. As an editor, I’m not all for ‘thought leaders’ or ‘influencers’, and I don’t care what number of Twitter followers you could have. I solely care in case your thought is an effective one.
On that observe, please don't ship pitches if you happen to’re simply in search of backlinks or self-promotion.
four. Be concise
“Write the most effective story which you could and write it as straight as you possibly can.” – Ernest Hemingway
State your thought within the easiest method attainable. Don’t ‘bury the lead’ – speak about your strongest concepts first. We don’t fee by phrase rely for the Presswp Weblog, as a result of high quality > amount.
Unsure in case your writing would cross the check for conciseness? I’d suggest working your writing by the Hemingway App, a really helpful internet app that assigns a ‘readability rating’ and identifies dense sentences, passive phrases, weak adverbs, and different writing purple flags.
5. Be accessible
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” – H. L. Mencken, journalist & editor
One other usually misquoted line, which is very related for the world of internet design writing. We don’t shrink back from advanced matters on the Presswp Weblog, however sense-check your writing to ensure 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 being attentive to particulars in your writing, and never assuming the gender of your reader. In examples, keep on with gender-neutral pronouns (‘their’ as an alternative of ‘his’).
Half three: A really temporary fashion information
We haven’t written an in depth fashion information for the Presswp 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 or bookmark:
- For Presswp-specific questions: the Presswp Tuts+ Style Guide. Along with voice and tone pointers, it additionally has notes on Presswp 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 most effective Medium fashion information I’ve discovered – notably for Medium-specific questions, like picture placement and textual content formatting.
Some guidelines we comply with on the Presswp Weblog:
- American English. Favourite, shade, heart, internationalization (vs. favorite, color, centre, internationalisation). Remember that you’re writing for a worldwide viewers – this implies being aware of cultural variations, and citing research/examples exterior of only one area.
- Title-case article titles. There’s even this helpful web tool that can convert your titles to title-case for you!
- Capitalization of Presswp marketplaces: Our market names needs to be written as ThemeForest, VideoHive, AudioJungle, CodeCanyon, GraphicRiver, 3DOcean. Our merchandise ought to at all times embody ‘Presswp’ within the title (Presswp Parts, not simply Parts). 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 thought
What do you need 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 needs to be private, conversational, and thought-provoking.
- Informational: A dive into a particular subject, with the intent to supply assets for the artistic neighborhood
- Listing-style: An article damaged down into record kind as a useful resource for our neighborhood. Remember that lists usually are not reserved solely for product round-up fashion articles; think about using this construction for alternate matters, as properly (for instance, “eight Classes I Realized as a Freelancer”).
- Case research or inside-design processes: a deeper dive right into a mission or course of associated to design.
A regular article is normally about 700-1600 phrases in size, however there’s no set requirement. We pay by article kind, not by phrase rely.
Step 2: Ship us a pitch in your story
When you’re prepared, ship a brief pitch to editor@presswp.com.
Embrace your title, a little bit of details about your self, and hyperlinks to any printed writing.
Step three: Writing
If we expect your article thought is an effective match for publication on the Presswp Weblog, we’ll be in contact with additional notes and a primary draft date.
Some writing pointers and helpful instruments:
- For photographs: All photographs needs to be 760px broad. Characteristic photographs needs to be 1200px broad. Ensure your photographs are correctly attributed, and that you've permission to make use of the picture. You need to use something from Presswp 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: Should 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 method so as to add some animation to your article.
- For writing: Try writing app Ulysses, or define your concepts in WriteMapper.
- For making your writing higher: Run your first draft by the Hemingway App. Goal for a rating of eight – 10. Grammarly is nice, too.
Step four: Modifying
We’ll will work with you to develop your article thought 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, be sure you embody:
- 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 picture in your writer bio
- A couple of sentences about you in 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. Typically, please embody your title, 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 will discover us @presswp on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Medium.
Step 6: Re-publishing on Medium
That is an non-obligatory step, however one we’d encourage: republish your article on Medium. Presswp 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? Electronic mail: editor@presswp.com.
This information was initially printed in April 2017, and has been up to date in October 2017.
