Become a Writer

We are always looking for new, talented and creative authors from all over the world. Let’s begin with saying that contributing to our blog will have quite a few advantages for you:

Advantages:

Exposure. Each author of the post or tutorial will have a small bio with photo and link back to his / her website at the bottom of each post. We have just re-branded and started to promote our blog and already have over 6,500 visitors daily and 75,000 links from other websites.
Fill Your Piggy Bank. Being one of our authors is not only prestigious, but also pays out. We pay from $20 to $80 for each approved and published post / tutorial, depending on it’s quality and awesomeness of the content. Moreover, we value our authors and they always receive small surprises on Christmas and their birthdays. Right now, we’ll accept up to 4 tutorials / posts from each author, means you can easily make up to $320 a month of your very own pocket money!

Requirements:

Ready for Publishing. Please send us a READY tutorial, written in the html / blog format (i.e. images / illustrations and plain text, please do NOT make 1 big image with the whole tutorial on it!)
Exclusivity. The tutorial / post you send us must not be published ANYWHERE else previously. You can have other posts and tutorials published in other places on the web, but not the particular one you wish to publish with us. Don’t worry, you will always remain the author with all the copyright rights, however we pay you for the exclusive opportunity to publish your work. Much like newspapers and magazines operate. For example, you can post the final result of the tutorial on your DeviantArt page and link to the tutorial on Lorelei Web Design’s page.
Quality. Not every tutorial will be published / purchased. We have 3 editors on our website who work hard to ensure only top quality content goes live to our readers, so here are some tips to make sure your tutorial stands out:

Tutorials:

WOW. Final result must have the “WOW” effect (can be of any reasonable size).
Images format. All images and illustrations in the body of the tutorial must not be wider than 580 pixels and preferably named with numbers in a descending order (i.e. “1.jpg”, “2.jpg”, etc). Please optimize images for web: Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S and save them in JPG format.
Well Written. Correct spelling, capitalization, grammar and overall interesting writing style is a must. Please stick to a professional, teaching tone, even if you are speaking in a very friendly manner.
Be detailed. Beginners have no idea where each tool is located, so please illustrate and explain in words what one has to do in each step. Please note that we reserve the right to edit your tutorial (add or remove parts, add links, etc) prior to publishing.
Name layers you are creating. (For instance: We will create a new transparent layer called “Glow” and select a Brush Tool to add glow to our selection… )
Be original. Please don’t send us tutorials such as “teeth whitening effect”, “signature tutorials” (of any kind), simple “text effects” and other sorts of tutorials that has been milled over many times over the past years.
Add PSDs. All tutorials must have the PSD file included which we will offer for a download on our website (NO watermarks, please) for educational purposes. Commercial use of the PSD will be forbidden.
Legal images. Please do not use licensed material, i.e. do NOT use images from Google Images, and someone’s website. If you use images, please make sure they are GPL (General Public License), or Creative Commons License for Commercial Use if you use Flickr Photos. Please ALWAYS credit the image / stock author. Preferably, use images from free stock sites like SXC.hu, DeviantART.com, MorgueFile.com and StockVault.net,
Send us your work. There are a few options on how you can have your work sent for a review. First is, if you are familiar with html, simply create a folder with all images and fully written html file, zip it and send us. Alternatively, you can (after administrators’ approval) create an account on Lorelei Web Design and publish the tutorial as a draft on our server. Using the easy-to-use Visual Editor and facility to upload as many photos and files as you wish. And yes, you can use your account here to upload and store unlimited files / psds / images!
Payment. Once your tutorial has been accepted, we agreed on the financial aspect and published your work online, we will pay 10 days after the publishing date. For example, your tutorial was published on April 25th, so you will receive payment on May 5th. IF during this time we will receive any complains about copyright violation (stolen tutorial, unauthorized photos used, etc), tutorial will be taken offline and No payment will be made. This step is to ensure we are paying for original work. So far we only had this problem once with unauthorized used photo from Flickr, and the author forced us to purchase a license, which was something we didn’t plan, so please be careful with ingredients you fix into your work!

Posts:

Interesting read. The posts we publish must not be a general ramble or opinion, they must be of an educational purpose. Good examples of posts can be something like: “100 Best CSS resources online”, “100 Best Icon Resources”, “100 Best Free WordPress Themes”. Ask yourself, does your post teach the readers something new? Is it truly useful and up to date?
Targeted Posts. We will accept posts related to WordPress plugins, WordPress Themes (no single theme release posts, only lists of 100+ themes in a certain niche), Freebies lists, Design and CSS resources. Always remember that the post must be interesting so that readers would want to bookmarks it.
Well Written. Correct spelling, capitalization, grammar and overall interesting writing style is a must. Please stick to a professional, teaching tone, even if you are speaking in a very friendly manner.
Well illustrated. Please illustrate your post. If you make a list of plugins, make sure that at least 50% of them come with some sort of screenshot or illustration. In other cases, please do not use licensed material, i.e. do NOT use images from Google Images, and someone’s website. If you use images, please make sure they are GPL (General Public License), or Creative Commons License for Commercial Use if you use Flickr Photos. Please ALWAYS credit the image / stock author. Preferably, use images from free stock sites like SXC.hu, DeviantART.com, MorgueFile.com and StockVault.net. Please don’t about where your images are uploaded, as we are caching them on our server automatically.
Minimum 700 words. If you are making a “quality” post, we expect to have something to read. Unless you are creating a useful list where, for instance, we will have 100 clickable images leading to best plugins, or wp themes, or icons — please include at least a few paragraphs of content written in your own words.

Before Submitting…

Please make sure you proof read your tutorial / post and followed the above rules. Here is a list of common reasons why tutorial may be rejected:

We already have a similar tutorial published on LoreleiWebDesign.com or PSwish.com
This particular effect has been taught many times before by other Photoshop communities.
The tutorial / post is too short. To have a good idea of what is a GOOD tutorial, have a look at some of our previously written tutorials for a reference. These are GOOD tutorials: PS tutorial 1, PS tutorial 2, PS tutorial 3, PS tutorial 4, PS tutorial 5 and PS tutorial 6. Also: Photography Tutorial 1, Photography tutorial 2.
If you wish, you can send us for a review only the final result and the first 3-4 steps, to get feedback before spending time writing a whole big tutorial.