Wednesday, August 10, 2005

EXCELLENT Writing Op - ThyStaff



I recently received the following message from the Editor of ThyStaff. This is not currently a paying market but may become one in a short time. I've emailed Mitch Allen and asked that he send a subscription to our group so you will have sample copies to work from. I encourage you to check this out. I am going to submit something for their review shortly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Louise,

My name is Mitch Allen and I serve as editor of ThyStaff, the automatic devotional newsletter. Actually, ThyStaff is a new type of communications tool available to the leaders of Christian organizations. It is just cleverly disguised as a newsletter! I invite you to learn more about our newsletter at www.thystaff.com .

LORD willing, ThyStaff will launch on October 1, 2005. We are so excited about this! I am anxious to see your members included in this project. It is vital to the success of this project that we receive your contributions on a steady basis. We have already made contact with writers from Kuwait, Africa, England, India as well as all over the United States. I'm going to get a world map just to show my sons the locations of our contributors!

Here are the writer's guidelines your members will need. Look them over and drop me a note with any questions or suggestions you may have.

Please, send your submissions as quickly as possible so we can review them by August 22. This will allow adequate time to assemble the newsletters in advance of the launch date. Again, we will need material on an ongoing basis after that date as well.

Compensation: First, your members will be given a byline at the end of their article when it is published. Additionally, we will send a short bio and contact information for each writer to our subscribing organizations. Finally, if one of your members submission's is used, they will receive a credit for a three month subscription to our newsletter service (valued at about $75.00!). They may donate this to their church, civic organization, favorite missionary or use it themselves to keep in contact with their supporters! By the way, your local Christian writer's group is eligible to receive ThyStaff for FREE. (Please, e-mail me now to sign up!)

Our goal is to begin cash payments for submissions by the end of this year, LORD willing. This will be based upon how quickly we enroll subscribers, so be sure put in a good word for us with any churches or groups who could use this exciting new service!

Guidelines: Our format will accommodate articles up to 350 words in length. Larger articles will typically be devotionals. The smaller articles will usually be more informational, educational or entertaining in nature. Consider the following suggestions for smaller articles:

World prayer alerts
World Christian news briefs
Family life tips
Poetry
Holiday histories
Greek for dummies
Church history
Recipes
Health tips
Bible trivia
Movie reviews
Websites of interest
Church leader bios
Famous Christians
Excerpts from old books in public domain
How to work with youth, children, seniors, singles or students
Book reviews
Magazine reviews
Conferences
Bible book synopsis (Book at a glance)
Layman's lexicon (Dummy's dictionary of Biblical/Christian terms)
Cult watch
Jokes
Puzzlers

The devotionals will be Youth/Adult oriented. Perhaps your members can share one of their own experiences that reinforce biblical concepts. We don't want them to just overlay a scripture onto a "neat story". People identify with the struggles of others. Please have them include the scripture text and which translation or paraphrase they are using. They should give a call to action so the reader can grow from their experience.

ThyStaff is not a forum for discussing theological differences. We invite submissions from the world-wide body of Christ and obviously do not expect uniformity. We do, however, expect agreement with the statement of beliefs found in the FAQ section of thystaff.com. Our Writers Agreement asks authors to affirm these core beliefs. We also ask that a pastor or staff member confirm the author's membership in a local New Testament church. Our subscribers expect us to provide solid Protestant Christian content, not Mormonism, Buddhism, etc.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Submission Process:
  • Visit www.thystaff.com and register as a writer
  • ThyStaff will send an e-mail confirming your registration and will provide a form to submit for our records.
  • Print out and complete the short form. Please note this form has the Church Membership Confirmation section at the bottom.
  • Mail the original back to ThyStaff at the address provided. This is a one-time procedure.
  • Submit your article to ThyStaff by e-mail. These should be pasted it into the body of the email. No attachments.
  • ThyStaff will review the submission. They do minor editing for length, spelling and clarity and the article will be emailed back to you with the changes (if any).
  • Edited submissions should be reviewed by you. This will give you the opportunity to accept or reject the edits.
  • If you accept the changes, you send in the copyright release for the article.
  • If you reject the changes, send us the rejection.
  • When ThyStaff receives the release, they publish .

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Copyrights: ThyStaff asks only for a one-time release of the writer's copyright. This release will cover the initial electronic publication as well as permission for our subscribers to reprint the writer's article in it's entirety in their hard-copy newsletter. This reprint permission is only for the 30 days following the electronic publication. The writer must own the rights to the article, of course, in order to submit it for publication. We welcome items previously published if the writer still retains the copyrights.

The writer must send us the following completed form before we can publish their article. They can send it now, or after we notify them that we intend to publish their article. They should print and fill it out, sign it and have it verified by the Pastor or staff member from their church. Again, the Writer's Agreement with ThyStaff only needs to be sent one time.

Thanks again for your help! ThyStaff has the potential to bless so many people. Thank you for being a part of this adventure!

God bless you and your efforts,
Mitch Allen
Editor, ThyStaff

No comments: