Writing A Smashing Article

Our primary goal is to deliver quality content. We’d be honored to have you sharing your experiences on a recent project, or lessons learned, or things that worked and failed in a truly smashing  article. Your work will be rewarded with a honorarium and full credit. (Obviously.)

Getting Started

This guideline will provide you with everything you need to know to get started with your article. Please carefully consider articles recently published on Smashing Magazine: this is the level of quality we expect from you, too.

What Kind Of Articles Do We Publish?

We publish articles written by people who work on the web, for people who work on the web. These include:

• Tutorials - either helping people get started with a new technology, or walking them through the process of building a project.
• Opinion - do you have a strong opinion on something in our industry and the research to back it up? These can make useful talking points.
• Ultimate Guides - longer articles really digging into a subject. A reference piece that people will return to time and time again.
• Case Studies - what did you or your company learn from a particular project. These need to focus on practical examples which will be useful to other people, not just a good story.

Who Are We Publishing For?

The Smashing audience are professional web designers, developers and other people involved in developing websites and online businesses. When you write, assume that your reader is a knowledgeable peer. Writing a beginner article about a technology is great (we are all beginners at something), but you can assume a starting point of familiarity with web technologies.

Practical advice that comes from real experience, plus well researched opinion is what we aim for. See the writing and style guide for more tips on how to write for our audience.

What Will We Ask Of You?

When we give your outline the green light and ask you to write an article we ask that:

• The article is an original piece of work for Smashing Magazine, not something you have published elsewhere.
• You will work with the editor assigned to you, and be open to their feedback.
• While we do not demand strict deadlines, the nature of the web is that if something takes too long to publish it might be out of date! Work with your editor to establish a sensible timeline.
• You commit to our publishing policy, this is especially important to consider if you are writing about something learned while working on your own products. You can always ask your editor if anything is unclear.

What Will Smashing Do For You?

Creating great content is a two-way process:

• We will pay you promptly on publication of your article.
• We have lovely, experienced editors and reviewers with specific knowledge in the subjects we cover. They will help ensure your article really hits the mark.
• We give you a byline with your photograph and biography, so readers can find out more about you and your work.
• We will promote your article on Twitter and in all our other channels.

Details About The Process

We have a full guide to our writing process here, we aim to create a great experience for authors and to help you publish your best work with us.

Unless you have a draft of an article that you think would be perfect for Smashing we would suggest that you start by getting in touch via our contact form and including:

1. Your proposed outline, see the editorial process guide for more information on writing an outline.
2. Or, if you don’t have an outline yet but want to run a topic idea by us, give us enough detail of the topic or topics you would like to explore so we can understand your ideas.
3. URLs to examples of your other writing - that can be a post on your blog or a Medium article, it doesn’t need to be a ‘published’ piece.

We’re always glad to make new contacts and explore new possibilities. We would be very happy to welcome you on board of our Smashing team!

Last updated 16th December 2017 by Rachel Andrew.