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Write for The Geek Pub (Contributor Rules)

[We regularly update this page. Check back often.]

STOP

If you are link building marketing company who writes low quality spammy content written in hard to read or broken English, there is no reason for you to read further or contact us. Your content will never be accepted. We will delete your email and will not reply. 99% of all requests we get are denied. Save your time and ours!

For everyone else, please read on.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE GEEK PUB

The Geek Pub is a DIY, Maker, and Technology blog. We have a great audience following, and a loyal set of fans. Because our readers and viewers expect the highest quality content from our website we are quite particular about accepting contributed content. If you think you have what it takes, please read the following completely, and then feel free to contact us if you think you can be a valued partner.

The Geek Pub accepts contributions from other professional level writers with a focus on our core audience. There are two ways to contribute:

  • Scheduled Contributions – This allows you to write on a recurring publishing date each month. Generally, you will need to be invited based on previously submitted high quality content.
  • Ad Hoc – This is for contributors who are wish to contribute content on an occasional basis. Accepted content in this category is held and posted when there is an opening on the editorial schedule. This is generally from two days to two weeks out.

Any content accepted for publication on The Geek Pub must be exclusive to our site. We have a zero tolerance, one strike and you’re out policy on this.

Clarifications:

  • ABSOLUTELY NO PLAGIARISM (NOW, or LATER) – We use CopyScape and other tools to check all content before publishing. We also run an automated check against our site on a weekly basis.
  • NO SELF-PLAGIARISM/REWRITING – Do not re-use sentences from content you have published on other sites, including your own! You may quote other sources, but you must give credit.
  • NO ARTICLE REWRITING – Do not manually rewrite or use article spinning tools to attempt original content. We do not accept syndicated content.

CHOICE OF TOPICS FOR CONTENT

We encourage contributors to come up with their own unique ideas and topics when submitting content, as long as its on brand for The Geek Pub. We would recommend you quickly search the site to make sure we don’t already have the same topic covered in existing content. If you have any questions, you should ask them before submission.

If you need inspiration, we can generally provide you a list of topics we’re currently seeking content around. We’re always highly focused on new and interesting content in the following areas:

  • Single Board Computing and Micro-Controllers (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, LattePanda, Tinkerboard, etc)
  • Arcade Cabinets, controls, configurations, games, etc.
  • Electronics projects.
  • Retro-computing topics (Commodore, Atari, Apple II, etc.)
  • Always try to go beyond the basics/obvious.

Articles that tend to do well include the following and provide practical advice and actionable tips:

  • How-to articles and guides
  • Explainer content (e.g., what is… / why x matters)
  • Lists (tips & tricks, tools, etc.)
  • Opinion posts or commentary pieces

We highly recommend that you focus on your expertise. Work on topics that you know the most about, rather than leaning on work of others.

If you’re article titles start with “Top 10 things..” or “Best budget xyz..” or “What is the best…” just don’t contact us. Your request will not be accepted.

Please review this article from a contributor for an example of what might be accepted.

HOW LONG SHOULD YOUR CONTENT BE?

Posts should be at least 600 words to be reviewed and accepted. Posts between 1000 and 1500 words are preferable and will generally get placed sooner in the Ad-Hoc fill in.

Longer posts tend to get more on-page time, and more user engagement. Some of our posts are as long as 5000 words. However, use caution with extremely long posts as they tend to drift too far off topic. It would be far better to write two highly targeted 2000 word posts than a single 4000 word post spanning multiple topics.

Make sure your topics are clear and concise without a lot of filler words. Try to use shorter paragraphs that stay on topic with just a few sentences each.

DISCLOSURES

Any relationship with companies, people, products, or services mentioned in your post, must be fully and openly disclosed. Some examples of disclosures:

Examples of how to disclose these relationships:

“ACME Rockets carry the most payload! (Disclosure: I am an employee of ACME Rockets.)”
“ACME Widgets uses this product to increase sales 30%. (Disclosure: ACME Widgets a client of mine.”
“My business partner and brother, The 8-Bit Guy wrote the text below.”

NO SALES PITCHES. PERIOD.

Content submitted to The Geek Pub should never be written to sell a product or recommend a service.

Rather it should be about conveying your expertise and ideas with our audience.

LINKS

Links, done properly are a good thing. Links allow you to cite sources, and share additional relevant content with the audience. Wikipedia for instance is built on citations and links to other content. We encourage high quality links in your editorial. But there’s always someone trying to link to a spammy site, some self serving piece of content, or other bad neighborhood on the internet. Don’t be that guy. The following types of links in content will not be accepted:

  • No links to home or front pages of websites.
  • No calls to action that are obvious self-promotional!
  • No links to porn, drugs (legal or illegal), gambling, or loans.
  • No links to spammy sites or “bad neighborhoods”.
  • No promotional links or affiliate links without approval.

The following types of links in content will most likely be accepted:

  • Linking to sources and citations.
  • Twitter handles.
  • LinkedIn profiles.
  • Relevant content that is valuable to the reader and on-topic.

We unconditionally reserve the right to add a nofollow to any link or remove any link at any time, before or after an article is published. Buying, trading, or selling links is strictly prohibited and will get you immediately blacklisted.

REPUBLISHING CONTENT ON YOUR SITE

We generally discourage republishing content on your own site. Search Engine duplicate content filters will likely flag it anyway. However, we do realize there are times that this makes sense and benefits everyone. You may republish content only on your primary site after 20 days and you MUST use a canonical link referencing The Geek Pub as the original content.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

If you have access directly to our WordPress back-end (verified and regular contributors only), make sure you have your author biography and photo filled out. Use a color headshot only that clearly represents you. No stock photography, no graphics, logos, or other images.

For Ad-Hoc content, please submit a biography and photo with your email submission.

CONTACT US

If you believe your work is suitable for our site, please use the contact form below. Include the following required information:

  • Topics you would like to write about
  • Links to samples of your work
  • List of content/sites you intend to link to within the article (if any)

If this information is missing, we will be unable to respond.