LookingForClues Writers' Guidelines.
LookingForClues is a website that publishes articles that provide "Bite size nuggets
of insight and entertainment". We buy articles from new or established freelance writers.
We pay between $10 and $30 per article. The article should be at least 6
paragraphs (800 words) and generally no more than 12 paragraphs (1600
words) in length.
Please note that we make all payments via PayPal.
You'll need to have a Premier or Business PayPal
account. You can open one here. We
do NOT pay to Personal PayPal accounts, only Business or Premier.
We Do NOT buy articles that have already appeared on the internet on any site
in any form. If you accept payment from us for an article, it will indicate
that you agree to certain things described below. One aspect of the agreement
is that you will not sell, give away, or self-publish an article that we have paid
for, if it would result in the article appearing on the internet.
What
kind of articles are you looking for?
We are looking for articles on a variety of subjects. The subject matter should be something
that the author is passionate about, and the passion should show in their writing.
The topic can be almost anything that we think web surfers might find of interest.
The articles presently on our site can be used as a general indication of what we
look for. Links to our newest articles are on the right. ---> You can also
check our categories page for
a complete list of all articles, or search using the box on the right at the top.
Specifically, we're looking for articles that are of one of the following types:
Practical articles that provide specific useful knowledge to our
readers. Give the reader insightful and entertaining "how to" information on
a topic that has widespread interest. We pay $20 for these articles; we may
pay more to writers who write for us regularly.
Commentary articles that give the writer's point of view on a social
issue of widespread interest. We pay $10 for this type of article.
Trendy articles that introduce the reader to some currently hot or
trendy thing or activity. We pay $10 for this type of article.
Book/Movie/Product reviews that might interest the reader in buying
the reviewed item. We pay $10 or more for reviews.
In order to differentiate ourselves from other web content buying sites, the
articles that we will buy MUST include descriptions of personal experiences with
whatever the article is about. We feel that this kind of personalization will make
the articles more interesting to our readers and will make them easier to relate to.
Include your personal experiences either in a separate paragraph or two, or add a
sentence or two of personal experience to several paragraphs.
When preparing your article for publication on our site, we will write an introduction
to your article and include links to Amazon.com products. If there are not at least
4 books or other products related to your topic, we will not be able to
buy your article. Before you submit an article, please do a search on Amazon.com to
see if they sell items related to your topic.
How
do I submit an article?
If you have an idea for an article, please describe it in a paragraph and send it
to us at this email address (billATbkservDOTcom).
Or if you have an article already completed, please send it to the same email address. Please
put "LFC Submission - " and a few words describing the topic of your article in the
Subject field of your email. If you are sending a complete article, please send
it in the body of the email, or attach it as an RTF (Rich Text) file. Please do
NOT send any attachments in DOC format. Attachments in anything other than RTF
format will NOT be opened! If you use a word processor to write, you should be
able to save the document as an RTF file. If you don't have a preferred
word processor, we recommend using Microsoft WordPad, which comes with Windows. NOTE: Please
format the article so that it is single-spaced, with the title on
the first line and your name (or pen name) on the second line. Please
use "Courier New" font, size 12.
Along with the description or completed article, we require the following
information. If you do not include this information, we will not reply to your
submission!
-
Please state whether you are over or under 18 years of age. We
do NOT presently accept articles from anyone under 18 years of age.
-
Please indicate specifically how you became aware of the LookingForClues website.
If you came here from a link on another site, let us know what that site was. If a
friend referred you, let us know who it was. If you found us by a search engine, let
us know which one you used and what you searched for.
-
Please provide information about any previous writing experience.
(Previous experience is NOT required!)
PLEASE NOTE: We ask that you send one article submission at a time!
If you have multiple ideas or articles, please briefly list the topics of
the articles and we'll let you know which one we would like to see first.
What
happens after I submit an article?
After we receive your submission, we will reply (generally within
2 weeks) as to whether we would be interested in purchasing it for publication
on our site. If we accept an article, we will indicate the fee we are willing
to pay for the purchase of the article. See above for our general pay schedule.
The amount we are willing to pay is determined by several things:
Our estimate of how popular the article will be.
Our interest in the topic.
The number of submissions already in our queue.
The amount we offer for your article Does Not reflect our estimate of the quality
or style of your article. It is simply a business decision based on the above
criteria.
How
do you edit an article?
If you accept the proposed fee, let us know by email and we will then edit your article
for style. We try not to alter the content. We will send back an edited version, generally
within two weeks. Here is how we indicate edits: Items in [green] are
things that we think should be added. Anything in [red] is
something that we think should be removed. Things in [purple] might
need to be rewritten in a different way. Any sentence with purple edits is followed
by comments in [blue] in which we try to explain what we
marked in purple. Other miscellaneous comments or questions will also be in [blue]. Please
consider these suggestions, implement whatever you think you'd like to change, and
submit the edited work to us by email. There may be another round of edits needed.
We will let you know when we have reached a Final Edit.
What
am I agreeing to by selling you an article?
If you sell us an article, we will send you payment by PayPal. By accepting the
payment, you will agree to, and be bound by this agreement:
B K SERVICES, INC. ARTICLE PURCHASING AGREEMENT
B K Services Inc. operates the LookingForClues website. We have agreed to purchase
an article from you. By accepting our payment, you agree to the following four statements:
1. You state that you are the sole author of this article and that you have not copied
any or all of it from another author. You may quote sources as long as they are credited
in the article.
2. You agree not to sell or give away the same or essentially the same article
that we have just purchased to any other person or entity if that action would
result in the article appearing on the internet at any time in the future. "Essentially
the same article" is defined as an article that uses half or more of the sentences
in the article that you accepted payment from us for. You also agree not to
make the article available on the internet yourself.
3. You agree to let us use the article for whatever purposes we choose.
4. You state that you are over 18 years of age.
NOTES ON AGREEMENT:
If you wish to expand on your article or it's topic in another work, you may do so
as long as you do not use more than half of the sentences from the original article
in the new work.
You may sell "reprints" of your article to "print" publications. If those "print"
publications have an online presence, the publication may not post
the article online without our written permission. We request that notice
be given with any "print" reprint that states, "This article is available
online at www.LookingForClues.com."
Please be sure that you understand all of the terms of this agreement before
accepting any payment from us.
When
will my article be online?
After we agree on the Final Edit, we'll pay you by PayPal, generally within one
week. At that time, we will begin creating an introduction for your article. This
will consist of several paragraphs that relate to your topic or similar topics. This
will be followed by links to related books and/or products. We receive a commission
for each product sold when a visitor clicks on a link to a product and buys that product
or anything else on the site. Once the introduction has been written, we will post
the article on our website and notify you of that fact by email. We encourage you
to promote your article by telling all your friends and family about it! We'd also
appreciate it if you encourage them to use the links from our site to Amazon.com and
any other links on our site when they are shopping online. Thanks!
If two weeks pass at any step of the process and
you have not heard from us, please feel free to enquire about the delay by
email. We try to keep to the schedule that we set forth in these guidelines and in
the emails that we send at each step of the way. But if you don't hear from us for
some reason, do write.