So You Want to Write for Us?
In answer to our headline, bless you. You have attained to a noble aspiration in which we hope that our collaboration is mutually beneficial.
Content Guidelines
The Saturday eTique Post, hereinafter TSeP, targets a general reader who collects, but who expects something more original and substantive than a quick fly-by pointing out the obvious. In other words, if you rely on readily available online materials, you risk boring the reader and your editor.
Articles may contain scholarly information, but should not be addressed to an academic.
Topics can be anything of interest to you in the field of collecting. You could choose Beanie Babies (bless you again (not)), Public Works Administration artists, biography, history, or wherever your collecting imagination takes you. Items found in a Judith Miller book occupy the sweet spot for subjects. But don't overlook your own collection if you have pieces of special interest to describe.
Grammatical Guidelines
We shun works whose main verbs agree in number with the objects of the prepositions rather than with the subjects. In spite of what Merriam Webster thinks, "their" is not a singular pronoun. You must know the difference between a comma splice and a run-on. If you don't observe these rules, your editor will.
Rhetorical Guidelines
Please, please, please put your thesis in the first paragraph. If we do not see a thesis in the first paragraph, we will scream. We also love the active voice. Again, your editor can help you if rhetoric is not your strong point.
You will endear yourself to us if you assume an objective stance toward your subject. This is not the place to spew forth fawning obsequious paeans to Tiffany or others of its ilk. But neither think that you have to be cruel to be kind.
Journalistic Guidelines
You must provide original material created by you. Plagiarists will be banned for life and exposed as frauds - the editorial board will show no clemency, leniency, or consideration of a deprived childhood for infractions of this steel rule.
You should expect your work to be edited in cases where grammar, syntax, or clarity is deficient. We will never change semantics.
We value pictures at the rate of 1000 words each, but they are not mandatory. They add interest and help elucidate possibly dry prose.
Publication
We will notify you when your oeuvre is scheduled for publication. We will publish it with a proper byline and any biographical information you wish to include. When you agree to publication, you will also grant us perpetual licensing to publish your article, including any pictures, on TSeP. You retain all rights to the article unless we negotiate a sale thereof.
Compensation
We currently offer no compensation other than nurturing altruism, commraderie, and bon vivance. Your reward will be the development of portfolio and the cachet which accompanies publication in TSeP.
In more seriousness, we can offer you free advertising, free directory listing, and free classified listings, should you so elect.
Thank you for reading this far. If you have an idea for an article, please open a support ticket on our support page. We are not as curmudgeonly as we sound.