Digital Bits Skeptic

So you’re interested in writing? Great! We’d love to have you. Browse through the site to get a feel for topics and writing styles, or see the “About DBS” page for topic ideas. Then continue reading here for submission details. 

Before writing and submitting anything to DB Skeptic, please make sure you understand the following conditions. Lawyer talk is kept to a minimum, but for our protection and yours we need to make these points clear.

The short version:

1) Your article idea must be approved by DBS before we will agree to publish it. Contact us here with your idea.

2) The article can’t have been published anywhere else.

3) Article length must be at least 500 words.

4) Article payment will occur after publication.

The long version:

Payment

Authors are paid $20 USD for each article published. Your article must be approved in order to be published (see below). Payment method will vary based on the requirements of the author, and will be determined at time of article acceptance. Supported payment methods include PayPal and money orders. Payment is sent after your article is posted on the DB Skeptic website.

The $20 payment for articles comes from a limited supply of money. When that supply is gone, this payment offer will stop until more money can be collected. First come, first served. This space will update as needed.

The Legal Stuff

Whatever you send to us can still be used by you. Legally, we’re purchasing “worldwide exclusive rights”, which means that we get to publish your writing before anyone else. It also means we are allowed to resell your work, display it in other forms, and to post your article indefinitely on the Digital Bits Skeptic website. However, with this strict-sounding provision, we support a open, information-sharing society: you are free to do anything you want with your article after we’ve posted it.

Whatever you submit to us can’t already be available somewhere else. Pre-publication searches will be performed to ensure compliance.

For reasons of archival and future contact, the email address you use to send us an article will be stored. If needed, your email address will only be used when contacting you about your article - no other reason. If you’re uncomfortable with this aspect, remember that many free and anonymous email accounts are available from many providers.

Your article may be edited for content, grammar, spelling, ease of reading and related issues.

Article Submission Instructions

BEFORE WRITING - Contact DB Skeptic with a proposal for your idea. Nothing fancy, just let us know what it is you’d like to write about, and the basic structure of your article. If it’s something we’re interested in we’ll let you know. If it’s something we’re not interested in, we’ll let you know that too.

CONTENT - Spend a few minutes looking around this site to get a feel for the style and flavor of articles we want. No profanity. While DBS doesn’t always deal with family-friendly topics, the words you use must be. The writing should be written for the layman; if you use technical terms or complex ideas, take the time to explain them so a general audience can understand.

SUBMISSION - Assuming we’ve approved your article idea (see above), start writing. When your article is complete, email it to DB Skeptic. If there are pictures, mark where each picture should be in the article (like “PICTURE ABC.JPG GOES HERE“), and attach the pictures to the email. As for length, make the article as long as it needs to be, with a minimum of 500 words. Others can run into thousands of words. This is the Internet, not a newspaper, so say as much as you want and don’t worry about length.

You will get a response to indicate we’ve received your submission. If you don’t hear anything back within a week, we may have lost your submission in our spam filters. Contact us (via plain text email) and explain, and we’ll straighten things out.

Waiting time for your article to be posted depends on the complexity of what you’ve written, any required editing changes, and the personal life of the DBS editors. Generally this process takes less than a week, and you will be notified when your article is published. You can also keep a watch out for your article by either subscribing to the Digital Bits Skeptic RSS feed, or simply checking this website periodically: the last several updates appear in the “Recent Posts” section in the upper-right section of the website.