Everything Skateboarding Submission Policy
Updated Tuesday, February 20th, 2018
I wanted to take just a few moments to outline our submission policies over here at Everything Skateboarding, just so everybody is on the same page. While Everything Skateboarding largely functions in the same sort of manner that a traditional, print media magazine might, we do have our own unique and distinct ways of doing things over here that you, the writer/artist/photographer, might want to know all about beforehand.
Scope and Mission
Everything Skateboarding strives to cover all types of skateboarding, from all over the world. That includes (but is certainly not limited to): street, vert, mini-ramps, mega-ramps, skateparks, pools, pipes, slalom, freestyle, flatland, downhill racing, cruising, “alt skateboarding” (whatever the hell that is; we just consider it “skateboarding” around here), longboarding, dancing, and whatever else you could possibly think up. We aim to have a mix of old and new, young and aged, male and female, representing all colors, faiths, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Lastly, we want to have a healthy mix of the local, the regional, the national, and the international represented here. In short: we want something for, literally, everybody. Add a healthy dose of music and art to the mix, and you have a good sketch of what everything Skateboarding is all about.
Payment
Yes, we do pay for quality content over here. That’s probably Question Number One, the one that everyone will ask. It’s my job to be the judge of what is “quality content”; if in doubt, I will sometimes ask the staffers to help me out. Payment is negotiated before the contributor begins working on the piece, and is re-assessed once it is submitted. Payment is made at the agreed upon time, however the contributor prefers to receive payment. We prefer PayPal, of course.
Pitching The Piece
We do not “assign” articles to the staff. Rather, the staff “pitches” article ideas to me. They’ll simply ask, “Hey, Bud, do you want an interview with So-And-So? Or, a road-trip story about my recent trip to Whereverstan?” Pre-editing articles saves everybody a huge pain in the ass down the road; I certainly don’t want my contributors working hard on articles that I know will never get published. I encourage my staffers and contributors to think well outside the box, and to pitch articles that they may have never seen before, let alone written; a pitch is, after all, just a sentence or two long, so why not bounce some weird shit off me once in a while? Experimentation is important to me, and I really do enjoy pushing boundaries from time to time. It keeps life fun and interesting. As it should be.
Reader Number One
I base all of my decisions not based on my “editorial title and position”, but simply as the guy that happens to be the very first reader around here, aka, “Reader Number One”. And that’s basically how I judge any given article: did I enjoy reading it? If so, I’ll probably run it.
Likewise: articles are never edited; they are curated and critiqued. Writing, photography, poetry, illustration, painting… these things are arts. We treat them as such over here at Everything Skateboarding.
Staffers vs. Contributors
We treat them fairly similarly. All work on a per-project basis. The main difference is that staffers are “regular, consistent, monthly contributors”, whereas “contributors” might submit work just a few times a year (if that). But we value them all. Everything Skateboarding wouldn’t be the same without them, and I appreciate the hard work they all put into this project.
Technical Mumbo Jumbo
The main challenge around here is the diversity of hardware and software that is available on the market today (aggravated by the international nature of our publication), none of which is truly compatible with everything else. “Compatibility” is the main concern here; if I can’t see what you’re sending, then there’s not much point in sending it, is there?
That being said, here are the submission rules:
– Text should be copied and pasted into the body of an e-mail, and e-mailed to me at budstratford@aol.com. Do not send text as a file attachment! Please! Paste it into the body of the e-mail…!
– Photos should be at least 1100 x 1100 pixels in size, and should be emailed (in .jpg file format), as a file attachment. I can, and do, use Dropbox as well, for larger file photos, and/or when moving large numbers of photos around. Files need not be much larger than 1100 pix, either, as the actual reading width of Everything Skateboarding is exactly 1050 pixels. (Emails can transfer up to 25 megs at a time, which is about 20-25 photos of this file size)
– The same exact thing goes for art submissions. Files submitted as e-mailed .jpg file attachments are just fine for our purposes; the same 1100 x 1100 (approximate) size is ideal.
– Videos can be submitted using the old-school “embed” html code that we love so much around here (because it’s easy to program, and I am a dinosaur).
– What else you got? Poetry? Paintings? Sculpture? Send it in. Don’t be afraid. We like neat new things around here.
Here’s a great illustration that shows why you need not send in huge-sized photos for internet use; we don’t need them! The Christian Hosoi photo (shot by Jim Goodrich, at the top) is 1050 x 700 pixels huge; Dave “The Raver” Andrecht (another Jim Goodrich shot, middle left) is 467 x 700; “Flowers for Sarah” (digital illustration, from a series of ink sketches by me, myself, and I) is 565 x 702; and the semi-trailer billboard (another colorized-ink-drawing, digital illustration by Yours Truly) is the full-size 1050 x 652. These are, by far, the biggest photos we’ll ever use here at Everything Skateboarding.
If you have any questions whatsoever about any of the above, feel free to drop me an e-mail at any time at budstratford@aol.com at any time. I’m always more than happy to help anybody through the submission process.
Best regards, as always-
Bud Stratford
Executive Director,
Everything Skateboarding
www.everythingskateboarding.com
