Don't wanna fly soloooooo!
As much as I enjoy being in total iron-fisted control of SS!AB, it’s been kinda lonely since Ender and Kungfucius stopped posting regularly. So, I’d like to add a writer to the Sea Slug team. Edit: Last day to apply is Sunday (August 9, 2009). I’ve already received many applications, and there’s only so many sample posts I can read while still giving each a fair shake.
Five and a half years after the start of this blog, it’s kinda just been me posting lately and I can’t cover as many series as I would like. If you’re a fan of the site and would like to cover a series or two, consider becoming a writer here! Since I’ve seen this process started and stalled on many other blogs already, I have to admit I am a little wary of the process and probably a bit demanding.
What I’m Looking For
- Timely and consistent posts: I am looking for an episodic blogger. I hate seeing introduction posts and a flurry of activity dwindle to nothing in a month or two once the excitement has worn off. The expectation is that any new member would cover the new episodes of a current anime series or two within a few days and blog the series to completion. I know first-hand that backlogs are demoralizing and lead to fear, hate, suffering, the Dark Side, etc. This is the most important requirement.
- Experience editing images: I would prefer not to have to teach a new writer how to take screencaps, adjust the image size, and upload pictures with the Wordpress media uploader. You don’t have to be a whiz with Photoshop, but you have to be able to put an attractive post together by yourself.
- Your own voice: I don’t want huge massive detailed play-by-play plot recaps. Not that they are bad, but they are difficult to put together consistently and not very fun to write for most people. I’d like you to be able to put your own spin on what happened in the episode, rather than just tell readers exactly what happened and that the episode was good/bad.
What To Expect
- Existing audience: This is one of the major advantages of writing here. You will have a pretty sizable audience for your posts. Let’s be honest, building readership is not that fast or fun. Getting comments really makes blogging more fun, and you will get more comments right away.
- Low to moderate work load: You will probably be limited to 1-2 series at a time at first. I do this because the temptation is to say you’re going to blog 4-5 series and then find that real life gets in the way by the third week. On the plus side, you will probably get first pick of what you want to blog, and the Fall 2009 season is coming up. I’m not territorial about what series I will pick up, except in a few cases (e.g. White Album 2, since I covered the first season). So you wouldn’t be stuck blogging a series that no one cares about; you could go ahead and blog all the new Haruhi episodes if you wanted to (even though they would all be exactly the same). Even if your posts end up more popular than mine, I promise not to deface your posts… maybe.
- Support: You don’t have to worry about databases, updates, webspace, etc. I think our template is fairly versatile, as long as images are not wider than 600 pixels.
Sound like something you’d be interested in? If so, contact me with some information about yourself, and I’ll get back to you with details about how to send me a sample post. I’d like to get a new writer in place before the start of the Fall season in September/October.
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34 Comments
Damn, you lost me with that :p
I’m loyal like Yayoi. Wait…
Is it somewhat sad that I’m actually still looking forward to White Album’s continuation? Speaking of that though, is it continuing in the Fall, or is it going to be Winter?
There is nothing wrong with that! It’s coming this fall!
*hangs himself*
OH HAY!!! =D
OH HAY!!! =D
I know that I also did this with a², and I’m happy, but slowly the spread of team blogs starts to creep the hell out of me. Well, it’s a good thing, it’s just… it’s spreading. Like a virus.
I’d recommend you to offer guest postings. It worked for Danny Choo, it works for me. So it should work for you, too.
Guest postings work for editorial content IMO; I’ve been lucky to have good writers guest in WRL a lot. Kabitzin is looking for
editorialepisodic bloggers.Don’t-Cha mean “episodic” bloggers?
Oh We Love Remember! What are we gonna do with you? =3
Yeah, I agree that guest posts are better for editorials. I WANT COMMITMENT!
/puts a ring on it
Listen to what the man says. The smartest and most reasonable set of rules I’ve seen in a long while
Looking forward to you extending the team again!
Darn, I should have put up the same set of rules when I was searching for writers. I’m pretty much stuck with two inactive starters now… Guess the search will continue. Or I’ll go solo after all. As a² says, team blogs are a little too recurrent/repetitive nowadays.
GL with your search nevertheless.
You should get dangos as blog partners, like me!!
No wonder you haven’t been covering shows I watch, which is a shame. I think SS!AB is the ideal (no I don’t think my own episodic work is ideal, they’re a matter of what I’m able and comfortable doing) episodic blog in that it feels like an office watercooler where the salarymen gather to talk about last night’s television shows. Nice, casual, and fun.
Good luck with finding a writer!
That is exactly the effect I’ve been going for =3.
I agree with that too. Probably why it’s the only episode blog I’ve regularly read for close to 2 years. I get sad when Kabitzin doesn’t watch any of the same shows as me. OK, ego-strokefest over, what am I, Jesus159159159? (who loves ya jeezy) :P
No one will ever replace me! EVER!!! Unless Chris/Kurisu decides to pop out of nowhere… (he’s technically even more fanboy-for-Kabi than I am! *hint, check out his comment level*)
I also forgot to mention this: Good luck finding a new writer. Man, it almost feels like a new school year or something! (as in, new students/teachers/etc). I’ll have to *blush* interact with this new writer, and that will take some getting used to! It’s almost as awkward as the whole meeting-the-parents-of-your-girlfriend type of thing! If anything, this new writer should be a fine gentle(wo)man and a master lame-punstar! It’s the only way he/she can fit in
/me-being-a-loser
If only I could clone myself!
Good luck dude. Episodic blogging really is something else, as you need to commit to shows whose ultimate value to you isn’t known yet, maintain a certain schedule for a long time, and the act itself fundamentally change how you watch your shows. Not something that really appeals to me, but I respect those guys that do it, and have done it for a long time.
That’s very true, which is why it can be tough to pick up a lot of shows from the beginning. I want the new writer to succeed, so I’m trying to limit the early workload and set reasonable expectations from the start.
Ooh, very interesting. If you get multiple candidates I think you should do an anime American Idol. Anisong karaoke winner gets to write on SS!AB, with the twitterati providing the audience voting.
Well episodic blogging does end up hanging a lot of bloggers.. I am working with several team blogs at the moment, and it is a grain of salt situation. To try and infuse new blog though, it does make blogs more viable though.. so definitely good luck with seeking another writer!
Hmm, any pitfalls I should look out for?
I just hope your new writer will cover the stuff you wouldn’t, like loli shows.
Ordinarily I’d jump on the opportunity to write for a blog with readers, but sadly I cannot blog episodically. It fills me with hate.
Hopefully your search goes well enough. I put out a notice that I wanted writers, and I got NO ONE!
Ooooooo new writer! Sounds fun!
Weird time to ask for someone though isn’t it? We’re in the middle of a season, so it would be weird to not blog from the beginning…
Well, I think this process may take a little while, so I want to get new writers in time for the fall season.
I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I miss team blogs since the fall of Yukan! and OH!
“No I in Team”, how true :’(
and while I’ve somehow managed to cope with a ronery kind of blogging due to being consistently abandoned by my fellow chefs, that doesn’t really work for the merry bandwagon that is Sea Slugs!
All the best in your search!! Here’s to more witty/punny/awesome episodic posts? ^^
why don’t you just “hire” out freelance episodic writers? With the new WP custom author plugin, you don’t have to even create author accounts, so “creating” a new author just amounts to adding an author:_____ tag. Guest writing can be confined to email, and the sole admin of the blog can do all the dirty work. Plus this makes freelancing more of a feasible opportunity.
What I meant to say was, I have no clue wtf the new wp multi-author plugin does…but ask lolikit about the author:_____ tag he has. It is genius.
I assume it is something you could use Custom Fields to do fairly easily, if you were to add the meta-data tag right behind the author php call so that they looked like one value. In addition to Gargron’s plugin, there are a few other ways to add multiple authors to posts.
However, I want a permanent writer, and I want this to really feel like a team; I don’t want a one post stand!
Omg, there were already such plugins?! Well, I knew about the ‘Co-authors’ one, but the ‘Co-authors Plus’ is a surprise. *goes developing to beat these*
Oh wait, there’s one major pro in mine: You don’t need to edit your template files. (But hell, I need to add that RSS/author pages functionality!)
At last, I disagree with lelangir in one point: When authors are registered and post themselves it’s a lot better and more ‘official’ than via e-mailing and spoiling-admin’s-life.
Good luck on the quest. o>
Best of luck on the search!
Azumanga Daioh-fied Yumi and Touko are hilarious.
Heh, I had thoughts of advertising for a 2nd writer for my blog at some point, and wondered if it would be shameless or somehow weird to just advertise on your blog that you were looking for another writer or not (instead of trying to just find one and asking them) lol. I guess you perhaps answered that question (no).
Maybe I’ll see how this process works out for you before I decide whether or not to make a similar search myself.
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