TL;DR
We compiled a simplified checklist with 8 steps in the end of this page, feel free to take a quick look.
We are always looking for new voices and new authors. This means that it is easy enough to get a place to publish in the magazine. Our main goal is to provide art students with a platform to cover current topics in art and life.
Publishing in a magazine can be a good start for young artists and writers. We keep the texts and artistic contributions in the journal archives, which are always available on the website, so you can always link to your publications.
This article focusses on publishing text, but we are also excited to publish multimedia works: images, audio, video, embedded interactive work, and whatever you can imagine, especially for the digital platform! Get in touch with your multimedia ideas.
Now to the point, which steps one must take to start publishing in eigenart.
Find YOUR topic
The most important thing is to find a topic you’re interested in. Your interest in the topic is already halfway to success. It doesn’t mean that you have to have knowledge of the subject. Because that’s what the research and interview with experts are made for.
For a good text, it is important to understand if it fits the format of the magazine. Because, no matter how you spin it, each media has its own format and the audience.
Eigenart is a student magazine of the University of Arts. It’s a magazine made by students for students themselves. Our main topics are Art and Life. It’s abstract enough to give you a big field to express yourself.
Look at the magazine, read our structure at About page and what materials have already been published at Morgen and Heute pages. It will help you understand the direction we are going to.
We publish mainly in German or English, as it would be two languages mostly spoken at UdK, but we are open to submissions in other languages. Let us know if you need or want translation help, as this is something new we are trying out at eigenart.
Pitch us per Mail
When you have an idea in your head, try to describe it. Write one paragraph where you answer five questions:
Who? What? When? Where? Why?
With these five answers, you can already create a bright headline: THIS IS A CLEAR AND COLORED HEADLINE.
Then send it per e-mail to redaktion@eigenart-magazin.de with the headline as the subject of the email and send the paragraph with the idea and how much time you need for your article as the body of the e-mail.
You can also send your questions or ask for a meeting to shape an idea for a text or artistic contribution with the editorial lead or team.
Create your Article
We’ll answer you with our advice and time for publication. As a team, we will plan on which day the text will be published. Usually, we publish one article a week.
Start by researching, see what other publications are telling about this topic and decide what format it will be: interview, essay, reportage, article, movie, audio or even poem. We love all formats.
Find experts if it’s relevant to your format. For an interview, you need at least one speaker. For an article, you need several different opinions. For an essay, your opinion may be enough.
You don’t need to write a lot, 2000 characters is more than enough. It’s better to write less when you’re certain about the quality.
Divide your text
You write for online media, so remember to divide your text. Let’s think of headlines that divide the text into 3-4 themes.
Now come up with a LEAD. These are 2-4 sentences that clearly explains what the text is about. The LEAD is important for finding your text in search engines like Google or Bing. This is the first thing that the reader pays attention to after the title.
Now check one more time if the title is clear and simple enough. It is important to be in a dialogue with readers and give them the opportunity to understand exactly what you write about.
Send it to us
As we receive the text we will contact you in a couple of days to give you feedback if you have to improve it or if it is ready for publishing.
We are going to work on images for your text in the editorial team, and contact you about them to make sure you agree with our choice. If you want to work on images with us, please also mention it in your e-mail.
You can also mention if you want help editing the concepts within the text and would like a more in-depth editing process, or if you just want us to proofread for spelling mistakes and so on. We are happy to work to improve the text with you.
Images
Please send your files as JPEG or PNG, 300DPI ideally. Please title and order your image files in the way you want them to be published. Please write a caption with the source of the image.
Accessibility
It’s very helpful if you can include descriptions of all of your images as well, as an accessibility measure. Here’s a little how-to!
It is also amazing if you can send us an audio recording of you reading the article out. This is much nicer for people to listen to than an automated voice reading it out. You can send this as any audio file, and even record it on your phone.
Consider that the text will be read by many kinds of people. If you are using academic or complex language, try explaining it. Consider if an international audience will know what you are talking about if you use jargon, acronyms, or cultural references. Consider people may be reading your text not in their first language. You can use tools such as this one to check the complexity and readability of your text.
Checklist for publishing in eigenart
- Do your research
- Prepare a clear and concise headline
- Create a headline and a paragraph with your main idea
- Send us an e-mail at redaktion@eigenart-magazin.de with your headline as subject and a paragraph explaining your idea and how much time you need as body of the e-mail
- Mention if you want to participate on the image selection process, writing image descriptions, or recording audio of the text (for accessibility)
- Wait for our feedback, we will organise the publication together
- We will let you know when the publication will be published
- Share your publication as much as you can once it is out!