Announcing HomeStation Magazine’s First Writing Contest!
by Terra_Cide, HSM Editor
Looking to share your thoughts and feelings about PlayStation Home or Sony gaming in general? Want some extra spending money to buy some new outfits for your avatar?
Then it’s time to enter HomeStation Magazine’s very first writing contest!
Here’s how it works:
Look at the HSM website. In the upper-right-hand corner, you’ll see a “Submissions” tab. Click on that and write your article. Include any images you have with it (preferably images you’ve taken yourself within PlayStation Home). Once you submit your article, it will enter a queue on the HSM website, where it will be considered for editing, polishing and publication (rules listed below).
The contest submissions window will last from June 17th, 2011 through midnight GMT of July 8th, 2011.
And here’s the cool part: the authors of the top three submissions will each receive a redemption code for a $20 PSN card!
Now, how do we determine which are the “top” submissions? Easy.
We have the ability, behind the scenes, to measure how many unique visitors read every single story that gets published to the HSM website. Thus, the three submissions which receive the most unique visitors by the end of the submissions window will be deemed the winners. So, if your article is published to the HSM website, you should tell all your friends to come visit the website, read your article, and help spread the word to their friends to do the same!
Keep in mind, by the way, that HomeStation’s audience now numbers several thousands of unique readers every single month, and our Alexa ranking is one of the best for any Home community project out there. HSM gets a lot of traffic, including multiple developers involved in Home and beyond. So if you’ve ever wanted to be a part of one of Home’s most vibrant journalism outlets, this is your chance!
This contest is open to all members of the Home community, including members of the HomeStation team (with the exception of Norse and I, since we’re on the editorial staff). However, in order to make sure existing team members don’t have an unfair advantage, one of the three $20 PSN cards must go to a guest contributor who has never been published in HomeStation before.
Yup, you read that correctly. Two of the three $20 PSN cards could be won by anyone — guest contributor or team member — but one of the three has to go to a new voice.
Now then, keep in mind that just because you submit an article to the queue, you’re not guaranteed that it’ll be published. After all, HomeStation Magazine is an edited web publication with standards.
By submitting a writeup to HSM, you are granting us the right to publish it on the Internet. Therefore, you must hold the copyright for your article, or have permission from the copyright holder, or work within the confines of Fair Use.
- Articles should be in English.
Articles will be held to a high standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar. HSM is a community of writers and readers, and we really notice these things. Everyone makes mistakes, so it’s a very good idea to run your piece through a spellchecker before you submit your final draft to the pending queue. Most web browsers nowadays – like Firefox and Chrome – already spell check as you type (you’ll notice it’s on, as any mistyped words are underlined in red), and the WordPress template we use on the site has a spell-check tool as well.
Articles should, in the most general sense, be well-written. Editing done by the Editors – the adding or removing of content, as well as the correction of grammar – are all done so that you and your work can shine and be its very best. Remember, there are some very important people involved with the development of Home reading your work, and if this is a topic that’s important to you and your enjoyment of Home, you want them to pay attention to what you have to say. It is the Editor’s job to help make this possible. Please don’t get defensive – they’re trying to help!
If you want to talk to the Editors directly, you can send them a private message, via your own Inbox – located at the top-left corner of the webpage – when you are logged in.
- Ask yourself: will others find what I want to say about Home interesting?
Whatever you do end up writing about, tell us a fair bit about it. Three or four paragraphs totaling in 300-500 words isn’t enough – we’d like to know more! Don’t assume the reader knows everything you know, or experiences Home as you do. Your readers may not be your age, have your educational background, or live in your country; give them background, give them detail.
We need at least 900 words to consider it a full and proper article. Shorter submissions may be summarily disqualified based on insufficient length, unless the Editors in their sole discretion deem the work to be of truly superlative value.
Run a quick search (from the search box at the top the page) about your chosen topic. You may find information there to help you flesh out your own take on that subject. We like hearing about multiple points of view on a variety of Home-related topics!
Remember – if you do this right, 90% of your work is finished before you submit your article for publication. You shouldn’t be caught with your pants down when the article is exposed to the critical eye.
- What do I NOT want to consider as an article submission idea for HSM?
To reiterate that which has been said many, many times by HSM’s Editor-in-Chief, NorseGamer:
“HomeStation is a Sony-positive and Home-positive publication, so while we do constructively criticize with some regularity, we don’t publish articles that bash Home. We also don’t generally publish “wish list” articles or anything which comes from a standpoint that Home is somehow “broken” in some way. Because it ain’t.”
You may come across an article that states an opinion with which you disagree, or one that you believe is wrong in fact. Articles inspired by what you read on HSM are of course welcome, but there are right ways and wrong ways to react to things here. If a writer has an article published about one point of view, or makes a somewhat dubious statement in the comments, please don’t feel you have to add an article or comment on the existing article just to correct or argue a point with them. Ask yourself, “How big a deal is this?”
Small, simple points are best made by a message to the writer. This means writing to them directly – in a private message – and not taking the passive-aggressive route and talking in sweeping generalizations in a public venue.
If it really is worth a proper article in response, the most important thing to remember is you must make your article stand on its own. Do not write a counterpoint just for the sake of argument or disagreement. Don’t make direct references to the writer or the article. Do not be condescending. Include enough context in your writeup so that it is understandable to people who have not read the article to which you are responding.
Also remember too that while articles do allow comments, they are not for off-topic conversational interaction. They are not discussion forums, chat rooms, or places for flame wars, and comments deemed as such will be deleted.
- Whining about negative feedback
The HSM article comment system is important to HSM and to us, the readers and writers. Negative feedback can be accepted as helpful or hurtful. Our comment system does allow a certain amount of abusive behavior, but it’s not a democracy where you can say whatever you feel like about an article, its commentators or its author. Comment counts can look like a mere popularity contest. Yeah, it happens.
Problems sometimes come up when a prospective writer submits an article which gets rejected (or gets negative feedback in the comments) and thinks the negative feedback is wrong or unfair, and chooses to protest publicly about it.
Don’t do that. It will only hurt your cause and predjudice others – especially the Editiorial staff – against you. The best course to follow is to discuss the matter calmly with an Editor. If you think there is something worthy of public discussion, sure, bring the topic up in the Forum. But if you do, tell the full story, be calm, be reasonable, be mature, and don’t push it too far if you don’t get the empathy you want. Doing the opposite is a guaranteed way to not get the response you desire.
Oh, and before you ask: after the contest submission window is closed and HomeStation announces the winners, those people are the winners. Period. So if you get your knickers in a twist over not winning, remember that HomeStation is under absolutely no obligation to reveal the visitors-per-article tabulations to you, just as we didn’t have to publish your article to begin with. You should enjoy the act of writing itself, and rejoice if you make it to the front page of the website. The $20 PSN cards are just icing on the cake. Granted, it’s really yummy icing. With sprinkles. We like sprinkles.
If you think we are kidding, before testing the theory out, consider this: stupidity often manifests itself as an insatiable desire to fulfill one’s curiosity.
Beyond these basic guidelines, there is absolutely no official or unofficial policy on what type of material is acceptable. We accept factuals, game reviews, aphorisms on Home and the concept of online community at-large, constructive opinion pieces on Home, personal experiences in Home, interviews, even obituaries of deceased Home users. Anything in the general zeitgeist of Home or Sony gaming is acceptable.
We look forward to hearing from you! Will you be the next author on HomeStation’s front page? Will one of those $20 PSN cards be yours?
June 17th, 2011 by Terra_Cide | 5 comments
Terra _Cide is the former Community Manager for Lockwood Publishing and Editor Emeritus for HomeStation Magazine.
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What a great way for the Home and PlayStation community to get their voices heard ( well,read anyway) and make some serious PSN cash too!!
This will be epic in the way of awesomeness.
Great idea guys! I will give it my best as always and see what I can come up with.
Writer’s Workshops are available to help those who want to try this but have never written a magazine article before. The workshops will be held in the new HSM Advisory Group meeting room and will be lead by DarthGranny. If you want to participate, the dates, times, and sign-ups are in the HSM Forum under Main Topics, Writer Workshops.
thank you for the heads up, keara. i submitted one. nowhere near what was asked to write about, but it was too dear to my heart to leave unsaid. so if you will excuse me, im off for a good cry and will see what happens. mouse.
I would like to add -- since this came up at Sunday’s Writers Workshop -- that yes, people can submit multiple entries to the contest.
Good luck!