Welcome to the second letter from the editor. I hope you are all enjoying SharePoint Magazine and that you’ve received your copies of SharePoint Magazine print or PDF if you are a subscriber. We’ve received some amazing reviews and it’s only going to get better in the next issue.

I particularly hope you’re enjoying the new Silverlight in SharePoint series by Karine Bosch. We have some pretty nifty things coming up in that series, both in the form of content and in features, to help you master this incredibly cool topic.

The past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time on the Aspiring Authors competition, and we’re just about ready to reveal the three finalists. That has taught me, and us, a lot about how we interact with authors, especially considering the plans we have for the yet-to-be-announced Author Mentoring program.

Entering in a competition is one thing, however, but on a daily basis, we work with a range of authors on getting their knowledge out to our audience. Almost all of that work happens ‘behind the scenes’ and what you see in the magazine is just the end result and not all the hard work that goes into each and every article we publish.

So what’s it like to write for SharePoint Magazine? Why is it different from just blogging your heart out? And why should you even care?

Life as a SharePoint Magazine Author

First of all, SharePoint Magazine has a very strong sense of integrity. When we put our name on something, we want it to be the absolute best we can offer. That means that we work with every author on a one-on-one level to ensure that their articles are easy to read, addresses the right audience, has the right amount of content, moves ahead in a clear direction, and so on.

As an author, that means that you will spend a lot more time working on your article than you would normally do in a less rigorous environment such as your own blog. Quite often, your article will go through three or four stages of editing, focusing on the article content, the language, and the layout.

Throughout that process, you’ll work directly with a lead editor, which right now usually means me. Beyond offering advice, I’ll also keep your article on track through the editing process and hand the article off to the other editors as it reaches the various stages.

Now that SharePoint Magazine is also available in print, the editing phase is even more important. Previously, we could get away with making minor changes to the articles after they go live, but once you commit something to print, it’s more or less eternal.

Speaking of the print edition, most articles we publish end up in the print magazine too. It’s something special to see an article on which you’ve worked diligently for weeks shine at you in a physical paper magazine.

Opening Doors

One important thing about SharePoint Magazine is this: We’re not an isolated publication. SharePoint Magazine is part of the USPJA family, which means that an article in SharePoint Magazine can be the start of something much more.

USPJA is all about learning SharePoint. The products and services we offer range from the freely available SharePoint Magazine website, through newsletters, journals, webcasts, course authoring, all the way up to college level education in SharePoint.

When we invest the time we do in getting you on board as an author, it is with the knowledge that you may want to expand beyond that initial article. If your articles are good, you may find yourself with an offer for authoring a full journal on your topic, or perhaps designing training material for self-paced courses.

Earning Money

One major difference from your own personal blog is that SharePoint Magazine pays you for writing. How much depends on many factors, what type of article you write, whether you already have a name in the community, and so on. Most new authors start at around $100 per article but we have paid as much as $500 for particularly good articles. We have also asked some authors to write an article without pay as a trial, usually only if authors are completely fresh to writing or we’d need to do extensive work to get the article good enough.

However, you can also get paid if we use your article for other purposes, for example if your article is part of a series and that series can form the foundation for a USP Journal or parts of the content for a self-paced course at USPJ Academy. When you combine what you make writing for SharePoint Magazine with income from other channels, you can make a nice amount from your knowledge, and likely far more than you’d make from your own blog, of course depending on .

Audience

There are several sites online in the SharePoint space that has more readers than SharePoint Magazine.

However, only a few SharePoint sites out there can rival the readership and reputation for quality that SharePoint Magazine has. Our audience knows that we publish only quality content and that when they read something here, it can be trusted as a reputable source.

We are desperate to keep that reputation so when your article comes out in SharePoint Magazine, you can be sure that we have done everything we can to make sure it’s the best it can be.

When our readers see your name on an article, it is very easy for them to transfer the trust they already have in SharePoint Magazine to you. Because of that, publishing with us means your reputation as a valuable resource also increases.

In the end, it’s not just about number of readers, but how those readers perceive you.

Want to Be Part of Our Family?

We’re always looking for skilled authors, or even unskilled but passionate authors. If you want to join us in producing the best quality content on SharePoint, you need to jump through a few hoops, though.

First, read through our article content guidelines to understand what kind of content we want. Then, if you have a specific article idea, submit an article pitch.

If you don’t have an idea yet, but want to connect with us anyway, we can help you come up with good ideas. If so, connect through our SharePoint Authors page. However, if you do, it is important that you tell us what you have done before so we get a better understanding of what type of content we can ask from you.

After you’ve contacted us, we’ll get back to you to discuss the details. In busy times, this may take a few days, but if you haven’t heard from us in a week, feel free to email me at pubeditor@uspja.com, and I’ll at least verify whether we have received your information.

That’s it for now, let me know in the comments below if you have questions.

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