As many of you know, I currently run another website alongside LPA named "AltWire" which is a online Alternative Music community. Not limited to just alternative rock, AltWire extends to all forms of alternative music, or in other words...music that is different from the norm. While I am ironically writing this ad on a Linkin Park forum, I actually am attempting to branch out and make AltWire as diverse as possible by reaching out beyond the world of Linkin Park. However to do this I am going to need writers, which is where you come in. If you consider yourself a talented writer...with a taste for the alternative, we may just have the gig for you! What determines “alternative music”? With such a broad term, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what “alternative” implies, but here goes nothing; Alternative music is not bubble-gum pop music but can include artists in the top 40 charts. Alternative music is rock, but can apply to folk, EDM, punk and even hip-hop. Alternative music has boundaries, but they are not finite. Alternative music is past, present and future all combined into one. Sound good? Great! Let’s get down to business.. We are looking for writers who would be interested in contributing to the website. While we understand for the time being this isn’t an actual job (it is free work), we do have expectations since we take Altwire very seriously. Here are some things we’d ask of potential writers. 1. We understand you may be down with ICP and not Mumford and Sons. That’s totally cool, but we do expect you to be open to a website that could potentially cover articles on both. 2. Maybe you aren’t familiar with Metal music (for example) and that’s fine by us! You like listening to Black Keys and White Stripes style music? Awesome! We’d like you to incorporate your love for that sound and bring artists (current and even not so current) to the table. If you don’t think you’d be able to write articles on say, Stone Temple Pilots, we just ask to stick to what you know and try to only cover a genre you’re comfortable with. 3. While it isn’t a requirement, we ask that if you enjoy seeing shows, you make every attempt to go out and enjoy music in your town. Whether it’s at a local dive bar or at a sports arena, if you see it we WANT to hear about it. 4. We are all about new musicians! If you think a band/solo artist has potential, than by all means let us know! We are planning on featuring a new act each week or so. With all the music in the world, there are a lot of unheard talent that needs recognition. OK… and now to the super boring stuff.. We ask that everyone write a certain amount of material each month. As stated before, we understand this isn’t a day job for everyone and we can respect the fact that you have lives outside of altwire. That being said, we have a website to run and cannot survive on two articles a week. We ask everyone submit a minimum of ten news articles every two weeks, 1-2 reviews every month and 1 featured article a month. If this is too much, we understand, but we are serious about this and ask that only serious writers apply! Also, we are asking any writers interested to submit writing examples for us to go off of. I know this sounds like high school English class, but it’ll help us to determine people’s strengths. We really want to give everyone a chance, but if we aren’t comfortable with something, we’d ask that you’d respect our decision to assign smaller articles at first until we feel you are ready to take on features. We want everyone to have a chance but some people are going to excel with certain articles over others. For your samples, we are asking for two (2) short music news blurbs on anything that has happened in the last month that you find noteworthy. We ask for 1-3 paragraphs and feel free to cover anything you’d like as long as it relates to music. You MAY write about Taylor Swift (but why would you?!). For the second sample, you are free to submit anything you’d like but it must be a current representation of your writing skills. Do NOT submit that paper you wrote about My Chemical Romance from 10th grade (unless you are a 10th grader). It should be 3-5 paragraphs long. Ok! That should do it! Just one more thing though… We would like to know what you want in a music website? What do you despise about other sites but really enjoy about others? We are trying to create a unique experience here and only you can help us! We hope you enjoy AltWire as much as we do! Rock on! Please submit all applications to [email protected]. Our editorial staff will review your application and get back to you shortly.
Sounds pretty cool. I would love to try it out but because of the fact that English isn't my native language, I would probably use too much time on correcting mistakes if I had to write 3-4 articles/reviews each month.
If you guys ever need an Imagine Dragons fanboy of your own, I'll be there. Unfortunately, can't help with anything else. But I like the idea about featuring new artists. You should open a thread where you can post new artists. Oh, and make the forums there a bit more... visible. I feel like when someone visits the site there, they won't even notice a forum.
English is not my native language either, but I thought it could be fun anyway, so I sent an email with some stuff
I do write, unfortunately I am not very good at it. I am especially not good at writing reviews and doing interviews. Now, if you needed a poet or someone to write short stories, then maybe I could help.
I've always wanted to get into writing rap album reviews. This seems like the perfect opportunity. I can do up to two a month. Let me know if that works for you Derek. And I'll try and drop a sample writing one of these days. And btw the site looks amazing! It's very easy on the eye.. just the way I like it
Just took a look at this thread. If any of you are legitimately serious about writing, please follow the instructions in the beginning post and send me some examples. We're still looking!