Tolkien Library Guest Post Guidelines (31.08.12 by Pieter Collier) - Comments

Since there are many Tolkien fans and Middle-earth lovers who are also vivid writers and do have a desire to write about their passion, I get many emails from Tolkien friends who want to know if I accept guest posts and articles by guest bloggers on Tolkienlibrary.com, and if that is the case, what are the guidelines.

I figured that it would be easier to write the guidelines in a small article and just refer every new Tolkien lover with nice contribution ideas here. So the answer to the first question is: Yes, I do accept guest posts. And in fact while I have had many nice articles contributed already there are many more welcome! So do you have a love for anything Tolkien and have a writing bug; don't hesitate to give it a try!

So as for the second question, here I will give you all the details about the process.

What should the articles be about?

Any reader of this website knows that articles need to be on Tolkien, Tolkien books, reviews of Tolkien books, Tolkien art, Tolkien translations, collecting Tolkien, Tolkien events, Tolkien news,... so anything Tolkien will do!

There is always a list of ideas available for you to start from or you just send over (first) what you would like to write about and we can see from there. But in general if there is a Tolkien connection I'm happy to post your article online.

There is no minimum length for your post, but usually the guest posts have over 300 words.

Further (important) guidelines

Follow tolkienlibrary.com for a little while to get a feel for the topics, length of posts, writing style, and formatting.
Your post must be original and must have never been published before on the Internet.
You agree to not publish the post anywhere else (i.e., in your own blog or as a guest post in other blogs).
You will contact me first to see if your contribution idea is ok.
You will do research on the topic and write an article of the highest quality possible. Tolkien fans will immediatly notice any mistakes so please take your time to make good articles.
You can include one external link inside the article (to your own blog, an external site that has no Tolkien connection,...) and more can be allowed when they are linking to sources used to write the article. A high-quality, helpful post will get people checking out who you are more effectively than will lots of links back to your blog.

Formatting Guidelines

Please write your article in a word document or plain text format and include the title of the article. When you are writing a long article, please include subheadings! Please do find some pictures to go with the article, in general I prefer to have pictures from wikipedia (who are rights free) or make sure you own the copyright to any images you submit with your posts. I can’t use images that are wider than 1000px, but I don't like the tiny onces either.

Make sure to include the author byline at the bottom, with the link to your website or blog already formatted. This is the place where you will be featured, so make sure to send me your byline!

What will happen to the article?

All posts that appear on Tolkienlibrary.com are edited before release and will be added by me personally. I rarely edit them heavily, but can change titles, rework openings or conclusions, or correct grammar and spelling (but in general it is my careful readers who do aid me with that!). Occasionally, I’ll send a post back to you with suggested additions, omissions, or changes. This generally suggests I feel the post could be further enhanced in ways that go beyond some basic editing. Next to that I will also be adding links to Amazon if the post talks about specific books.

I'm ready, so how do I proceed?

If you have a post that meets the guidelines above, you can send it to me on the email contact@tolkienlibrary.com.

Please include the post in the body of the email itself, and don't foget to include the .doc attachment. I check and respond to all guest post submissions. If I don't get back to you right away, this doesn’t mean I have rejected your post though, and even in case of rejection you should get an answer from me, explaining the reason.

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