Tips For Writers

Topics
Lothian Life is a county magazine for Edinburgh and the Lothians and that simple statement tells you a lot of what you need to know. Articles should contribute to the feel-good factor of living here. They can be about people or places, past, present or future and are usually from 700 - 1500 words. Our lifestyle section covers Homes and gardens, Health and fitness, the Outdoors, Tastebuds and Arts and again must relate to this area. We aren’t likely to publish anything that might be found in any general lifestyle magazine!

Timing
As we are internet based, we don’t need to have a long lead time, however, the best idea is to give me a call to discuss your idea first. A few minutes spent exchanging ideas usually produces a much better article. If I know it’s coming I can begin the complementary work - sourcing graphics, perhaps checking some details or facts and, if I’m lucky, your material may also attract a new source of advertising revenue. If you run into difficulties with deadlines, please tell me as soon as possible. I may be able to help.
Remember, we’re on the same side.

Sell Your Work
Like all editors, I’m more inclined to give you the go ahead if you demonstrate that you know and like the magazine. There are few things more likely to get you turned down than demonstrating the exact opposite by phoning up and suggesting that you write an article we covered not long ago. I like to pay contributors who are bona fide journalists but I don’t expect to pay people who are writing about their hobby or business as self-promotion. Please be clear about which you are and make sure that I am clear too! Also, if you include photographs, please make sure I know whether you expect to be paid for them and if you want them back.

As a writer, you will have a great opportunity to increase your exposure. Each writer is invited to submit a profile and photograph so that readers who have enjoyed one of your articles can search for more of your work. Payment to writers will be similar to the way advertisers pay us i.e. on results. Hence, the more people who read your articles on our site, the more you will be paid. Unique visitors can be measured and you will receive a cheque monthly. The unique visitor method of accountability is designed to protect advertisers from rivals who might click on their ads to use them all up but in this case it will protect Lothian Life from writers who might try to generate more income by clicking on the articles themselves!

I propose an initial rate of 1p per reader. This may not sound a lot but remember, this will include every article that is on the site, so if you have 10 articles which are linked to each other through your profile, they will still be earning for you even when they are archived. I also propose a minimum payment of £10 to save small cheques.

Details
For various reasons, I may need to edit your copy. This will be in the interests of improving it (in my opinion), either to include additional information, or to tighten up any lacklustre parts. In an ideal world I would send you a copy for proofing but I confess I sometimes don’t. This isn’t due to lack of respect, but lack of time. If it matters to you, give me another week. If it comes last minute, you’ll have to trust me.

I love e-mail! If composing articles in Word, please use a simple font, don’t indent paragraphs, don’t double space between sentences and don’t double space or leave lines between paragraphs. I know this isn’t what you are normally told but it’s because when imported into the magazine, the html code appears. I then have to spend ages taking them all out again as formatting for the magazine is done automatically in house style.

If you don’t have access to email or word processing equipment, don’t worry. The important thing is that you have the idea and the information which you have convinced me I need. I will get fed up trying to decipher bad writing or making sense of bad grammar but I have only once given up completely and hit the martinis.

Photographs
If you are supplying digital photographs by email, please send the jpegs as they come straight from the camera because as soon as you open them, they lose both quality and compression. If scanning, please scan at 72 dpi RGB. If you want to send a lot of pictures for us to choose from, then, if you do not have broadband, you may find it easier to burn them onto a CD and post it. However, we don’t need high resolution pics for the web.