When I applied as a contributing writer for Technorati two weeks ago, I also applied for Blogcritics to be a contributing critic. In the end, I got accepted in Technorati and I was rejected in Blogcritics for a very vague reason: “Thank you for your interest.” :???:
A week after that rejection, I received an invitation email from Blogcritics stating that they are looking for book reviewers. I laughed at it first, however because of that email1, I decided to apply again for the second time. Two days ago, I got my acceptance welcome email so now I’m a new Blogcritics writer/critic. Yesterday I spent most of my time reading all these gazillion policies and procedures, style guides and even a new writer instructions section. In other words, I’m still on trial mode and that I have to send in three brief articles that are 500 words or less and that I pass the trial mode before I can actually become an official Blogcritics writer.
Being a writer for both Technorati and Blogcritics is serious business, folks. You need to have quality writing skills, a very strong command of the English language, and you need to be very discreet with the style guides and proofreading, such as spelling, grammar and punctuation. This ain’t one of those sites where you can sign up, get accepted to write articles for them and then submit them “winged-it” crap that has no substance and no sense to the target topic. You also need to have an open mind and personality through your writings as Blogcritics is an online magazine in order for you as a writer to stand out. And most of all, you can’t be biased when you’re reviewing an item. Love the book because you love the book, not because the author is your best friend or someone you happen to like as an individual or the fact that you’re a huge fan of that author. You get the picture.
I’m happy to have this second opportunity to expand my writing; to be able to expand outside the box and to share what I know and what I love to the masses. It may not be on my creative writing, but hopefully one day that this would make me credible as a writer should I ever get engaged in future writing projects.
- and I haven’t written any thorough book reviews for a long time now… [↩]
