 Computor Companion encourages high-quality guest posts from business writers. Partly because of its origins as a print magazine, we view it as an online publication and we have always enjoyed working with multiple authors.
Computor Companion is about using computers in business. It is targeted toward business owners/managers and entrepreneurs. Our articles are edited to instruct, inform, and entertain readers.
Articles should help readers take advantage of technology to earn more profits in their business. The goal of every article in Computor Companion is to provide high-quality business information in an easy to understand manner.
Writing for Computor Companion
Computor Companion focuses on the needs of small business owners with easy to understand useful articles. The trick to writing well for this magazine is to convey even technical information clearly and concisely in plain English.
Bear in mind that our editors have a long history in the publishing world and have developed an extremely low tolerance for gratuitous hype, acronyms, and "geek-speak." (Read: you won't impress us with your knowledge by using the latest "cool" nerd term.)
When you write for Computor Companion, it helps to imagine that you are explaining something to an intelligent, but not very experienced business owner like your favorite aunt or your mother. Just as you wouldn't overload Mom with endless jargon or be condescending to her, we don't want you to talk down to our readers either.
The best writers inject some of their own personality into their writing and keep their style relaxed and interesting. A little levity never hurt anyone and we like witty articles, but don't go overboard.
Articles also must be absolutely positively accurate. No guessing whether something works or about a Web site URL. It also goes without saying that plagiarism in any form is not tolerated.
The First Step
Before submitting a query, it helps to be familiar with this Web site. Go through the archives, read the articles, and get a feeling for our editorial style.
 Here's what we want:
- Originality. We require original content. Ideally, your article should be at least 750 - 1,000 words long. If it has been published anywhere else DO NOT submit it.
- Quality. You need to spell-check and proofread your article carefully. Computor Companion has been getting so much traffic for so long because the articles are good.
- Relevancy. Computor Companion is for entrepreneurs. We want articles that help entrpreneurs in their day-to-day life using their computers. If you want to write an article on how to care for alpacas, that's nice, but please don't submit it to us.
- Practical. Computor Companion focuses on helping people get things done. We prefer articles with a business-related how-to focus. Computing history articles or articles about why cloud computing is the greatest thing since the microchip are fine for other tech publications but are NOT what we are seeking.
Here's what we don't want:
- Spinning. Any article that has been "spun." If you're using that type of software, we don't want to see the results.
- Diatribes. If you are Mac zealot, or an open-source zealot, or any type of technology bigot, keep it to yourself. We aren't interested in dogma or religious beliefs (and yes that includes the ever-tedious Mac/PC debate). This is a business site, not a forum for furthering anyone's personal agenda.
- Affiliate links or spam. Links must be useful (no gratuitious linking to your sites).
- First draft copy. Please don't send us junk.
Note that we're also not interested in video or audio formats. Maybe text seems old-fashioned to you, but our visitors (and search engines) still seem to like it ;-)
Next Steps
After you've got an idea of what you want to write, the next step is to submit a query telling us a bit about the article. Explain what problem, technique, or products you want to discuss and why we and Computor Companion readers would want to read the article.
If you give us a clear, concisely written letter that shows a distinctive (yet readable) personal style, you'll get our attention. The best way to contact us is via our contact form
If we like your idea, we'll contact you.
Formats
Manuscripts must be submitted in digital form via e-mail. We can accept Microsoft Word (.doc), clean or ASCII plain text file formats. (Please do NOT submit HTML.) If you include screen shots or photographs, they must be in GIF or JPG formats. Graphic files must be separate files; do NOT embed them in the word processing document.
Acceptance of an article doesn't guarantee that it will be published immediately.
Note that we may edit your article for grammar, content, and length. Please don't be offended. We all want the article to be the best it can be.
As a freelance writer, you must accept the fact that editors are going to edit your work. Although we always try to keep as much of the author's "voice" as possible, sometimes we must make changes for clarity or length.
Why Write for Us?
If we accept your article, we request that you not publish it anywhere else. You can freely link to your article from your site. Linking to our website makes us happy and if you give us your website URL in your bio, you get the benefit of a link from a high authority site with a good page rank.
Computor Companion consistently receives 1 to 2 million unique visitors per year and has done so for more than a decade. Your article will definitely be seen and found by the Google Gods. (As an aside, the reason Google has been so kind to this site for so long is because of the rules we outlined above; quality content never goes out of style.)
Thank you again for your interest in Computor Companion magazine. We hope this information helps you write great articles we'd love to publish. To make arrangements to send your submissions, contact:
Susan Daffron,
Editor Computor Companion
(Please use
our contact form) |
