by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief

Only twice before has HomeStation ever put a call out for additional talent. In both cases, I’ve encountered an unexpected hurdle to overcome:

Intimidation.

“I don’t think I’m anywhere good enough for HSM,” is what I’m usually told. And it’s not a smokescreen, either; as far as I can discern, people really mean it.

Look, I get it. HomeStation has, in a very short period of time, established a reputation for some fairly mature and literate journalism devoted to Home. And, further, we produce a new story every day. That’s 365 new stories per year. To be blunt, that’s one hell of a production pace.

There’s no way around it: the HSM team works a lot. But we take pride in our work. And the end result is that we reach a pretty darned large audience (which continues to grow), including multiple developers and related parties who are involved in the creation and evolution of Home.

And with this continued growth, we once again find ourselves in search of additional voices to join our incredibly talented team.

I do, however, want to preemptively tackle that objection I mentioned at the beginning: the notion that someone isn’t “good enough,” talent-wise, for HSM.

The truth is that HomeStation is a very forgiving environment for a writer. We conduct ourselves very much like a commercial publication, yes, but we are comprised of volunteers from the community. We have a very demanding level of production output, but we don’t have deadlines as such; work simply gets published as it’s written and edited.

To make things even simpler, check out the “Submissions” tab in the upper-right-hand corner of the website. We’re always on the hunt for guest contributions from the community. From you.

Try your hand at writing something for HomeStation. Who knows — you might just get published.

Now, do we guarantee that every submission is published? No, not at all. 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 publish “wish list” articles or anything which comes from a standpoint that Home is somehow “broken” in some way. Because it ain’t.

We do, however, publish analyses of Home’s many social issues, examinations of Home’s business model and infrastructure, space and game reviews, news blurbs, and personal stories about Home. Our theory is that most readers care less about the subject being discussed and more about how that subject made the author feel. Because it’s human behavior that drives commercial revenue, and socioeconomic trends are a big, big subject of study in emerging virtual realities.

There are some very talented people out there in Home — including many of the individuals who read this publication and occasionally even comment on some of our articles — who are certainly literate and entertaining to read. I’d like to personally invite you to try your hand at writing a spec article for HSM. Because I can tell you this: any article that gets published to our main page and/or one of our magazine issues gets a lot of traffic. A lot. Including various parties involved in the development of Home.

So the audience is there. Will you rise to the challenge? Will you add your voice to the HomeStation?

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3 Responses to “HomeStation Expansion: Writers Wanted”

1. Burbie52 says:

   June 6, 2011 at 6:31 pm

   I think there are many people out there who are talented writers, but you are right Norse that first time at trying this is daunting. I remember Norse when you first asked me if I would write for this publication, I have been writing things most of my life, but they were all fiction related and poetry, I have never before written anything like what I do here. That being said I must tell all those out there who might consider doing this that I have learned a great deal about magazine writing from this editorial team, they never take credit for the amazing work they do either, so if you write something, even if they change it quite a bit, it will be published under your name. The first few articles I did were weak in many ways because of my inexperience with the genre, but now I can say that very little is changed in what I submit, and I owe all of this to Norse and Terra for their gentle and caring way of guiding new writers to becoming the best that they can be. So don’t be afraid, give this a try you have nothing to lose except a little of your time, and there is a whole lot to gain.

   Reply
2. SORROW-83 says:

   June 8, 2011 at 6:46 am

   i have a large comic strip than i’m about to achieve, with all the modesty and humility wich caracterise me, i just can say than its a H-BOMB!^^
   a friend finish to translate it in well english!
   i m proud to show you (norse) our work;if u are interested, i ll give you the link to see it!^^

   Reply
3. littlepeddler says:

   June 10, 2011 at 5:38 pm

   I think I may like to try something like this. I may have to put together something and see what I can come up with.

   Reply