|
Guidelines for paid
contributions for publication in The Coastal Passage:
It must be your own
material! Never plagiarise, including photos. The Coastal Passage
respects other's copyright and enforces our own as well. If in
doubt about copyright issues, contact
TCP and ask.
By
providing contribution you agree to the following:
1. Your work may be
edited, though not usually. TCP respects your work, your intent
and perspective.
2. You agree that the
material is original work. Advise TCP if your material
has been published elsewhere or is being considered for publication
elsewhere. Advise TCP if the photos are not taken by you. Please
give name/s of person/s the photo/s belong to so we can credit
appropriately.
3. The Coastal Passage
will retain the right of use of your material after original
print for publication of compilation editions (Best of
for example), archive and for use on the TCP web site. You retain
your copyright.
What defines paid material? An article that has taken time and effort to prepare
and organise. There will always be space in TCP for the most
amateur contributions or issues oriented forum subjects and articles
that may promote community supported events etc. Thats
what creates the connection to community that makes TCP what
it is but those are the things we all volunteer our effort for,
and what TCP is willing to sponsor page space to support. Its
perfectly OK to ask when sending material if it qualifies for
payment but is the editors final decision.
To avoid unnecessary work and disappointment
and to maximise payment for contributions, intending paid contributors
should read and follow the guidelines below. It isnt a
bad idea to ring or email TCP for questions regarding this information
or to see if the subject matter qualifies for consideration.
What sort of material does TCP want?
1. The
material must be of relevance and interest to TCPs readers.
A study of recent issues of TCP is helpful to determine the type
of material sought and the way it should be presented but
TCP accepts and in fact seeks a different approach on occasion.
It is your rag, what have you got in mind? Can you suggest material
improvements in presentation?
Genuine heartfelt experience and thoughtful observation are prized
aspects of any contribution.
2. Make it easy for the Editor, Organise it! If it takes
additional time to process the text, or photos require special
attention, the value of the contribution is reduced.
3. Take your time. TCPs editor typically rewrites
material several times over several days before committing to
a page . Test the results on friends. Check and recheck your
facts.
4. TCP encourages contributions from the young folk and special
care and consideration is given.
5. Material that promotes a religion will be either edited
or refused. TCP must not seem to endorse or favour any particular
belief system over another.
Advise from the editor: Avoid pretence... write like you speak.
Practical considerations:
Written material should be supplied in either PC or Macintosh
format and emailed to bob@thecoatalpassage.com
Text and photos mailed on CD are great. Photos sent by email
are often too small to use. If you are intending to send a number
of high resolution photos to TCP via email, give us a warning.
There is no stupid word count at TCP. Creativity doesnt
come in tidy packages all the time. A very long article though,
is harder to work with and difficult to place but merit is determined
by the read, not the count. Sometimes a 500 word little nugget
can be the best article in the paper.
Be imaginative, but also ensure that your information is accurate.
All facts, especially ones that could be contentious, should
be thoroughly researched before writing and reference for facts
along with the article are helpful.
Personal notes about you in the form of a small autobiographical
sketch are good, a photo all the better but not a big deal.
Photographs: Dont mess with them! Please don't crop,
adjust or embed them into Word docs or anything else. Best thing
to do is to save your jpg photos in a documents folder
in your computer and then transfer to disc from there. TCP can
use photos of 1 meg or larger for just about anything. Photos
as small as 100kb can even be used for a small shot on an inside
page as long as the pic is sharp.
The GST and payments
We are still sussing this out but as far
as we know now, most of you are under the term "hobbiest"thus
GST does not apply. If your professional status requires GST
be addressed TCP will need an invoice to that end.
Payments
TCP will pay about $100 per page (exclude ads) for text and photos
used, more for really outstanding technical articles or exceptional
story telling. Less if much work has to be done to prepare the
article by TCP. All fees are tempered by the amount of
advertising revenue generated by the issue involved.
TCP will pay via bank transfer or by mailed cheque. If some other
form is required let us know and we will try to work with you.
OR... You
can choose to have your fee donated to a nominated charity. |