Congratulations to all the new contributors who published their first stories this week. Here they are:
- Ryan Ellis (also made top 5 -- congrats!)
- John Majalca
- Daphne Stanford
- Eric Halsey
- Paul Oster
- George Kachmazov
- Sean Krainert
- Mark Leader
Other news
- Select members might have noticed a new icon on Inman.com. There is a little gift box up in the menu bar. If you are a Select member and are logged in, you can use this icon to send a free month of Select to anyone you like! Give it a try.
- Please, please email me when you have created a post and give me the title or URL of the post. There is no automatic alert, and it can be tricky finding a post with all of the contributors and staff writers in our system. I can service you all so much better and faster if you let me know you have content ready to go. You will immediately get an email acknowledging that I have received it right away, and usually within a day or two (if not right away) you will feedback or publishing information. So please let me know when you post.
- By now you have probably noticed the takeaways at the top of every post. I'd really like you all to start putting your takeaways at the top of your posts, and in the future, I'll probably ask you to do so. Takeaways are sort of the nut graph of the post, and there are usually three. This will help us see your vision for your story, and it will help you in the writing process to write clearly and hit your main points. And we want to give you as much control over your story as possible. You are also welcome to do Tags (proper nouns and keywords) and click-to-tweets (click the little blue bird at the top and enter your tweet). I encourage you to do what you feel comfortable with and own your post as much as you own the words you wrote. You all are fantastic, and I can't wait to see what you come up with each week.
- I often get emails about posts that "disappear." Usually if your post isn't where you left it, it's because you created it under "POSTS." Ideally, we'd like you to create your posts under "NEXT," which is our holding pen for unpublished content. If your post disappears, it simply means that Amber or I moved it from "POSTS" to "NEXT," and there's no need to worry because it's always there.
- Also, if you are in the middle of working on a post and you have to save it for later but you aren't quite done, it's always a good idea to put DRAFT as the first word in the title. That way, we know you aren't quite ready for me to look at it yet.
- Just for everyone's reference, here are the links to the contributor's guidelines and recently revamped FAQ. I will also make a note on the general page so that you can reference them at any point. I recommend bookmarking the FAQ -- you never know when you might need it.
- We are still looking for more office manager profiles. If you have a great office manager, please email [email protected].