Write for Jolt Magazine
Want to write for Jolt? Great. This page has some general guidelines to help you decide if your idea could be a good fit for us.
If you think it is, just email us. The address is at the bottom of the page.
We’re a how-to magazine.
The mission of Jolt Magazine is to give software entrepreneurs specific and useful information to help them grow their businesses.
We want to maintain a real focus on “real-world” experience. So if you’re writing about something you’ve never done, find people who have and interview them.
Our Audience:
Our main audience is programmers (of all platforms, experience levels, etc) who are running, or want to run a business.
This doesn’t mean that we only cover “product” companies. We also give equal play to the consulting, or freelance, business.
However most of our readers will be in “small” businesses, with < 50 employees.
How to choose a topic:
A good topic will give the reader practical information to:
- Increase Sales
- Expand their business
- Save money & time
You get the idea. Here are some examples:
Good topics:
- How to sell a mobile version of your application.
- Business Credit – what is it & how to get it.
- How I increased sales x% by doing y
Bad topics:
- The Trouble with Twitter
- Acquisition/Investment vs. Bootstrapping (Paul Graham’s vision vs. DHH’s)
- Be an entrepreneur in 3 lessons: 1st, Stop Overplanning and Just Do It
The anatomy of an article:
Images:
- Include as many images as possible. Screenshots are great.
- Each article has a “title” image, exactly 285px wide, and no more than 360px high. If you don’t have one, we can find one for you.
Generally, all of our articles fall under a few simple categories:
- Quick Tip (250 words): Usually a link to some other site with a useful article, application, or maybe an amazing deal on a service our readers could use.
- Interview (200 – 1000 words): Should be about a specific subject that would be useful to our readers. Single question interviews are great.
- How to (500-2000 words): Go step by step with lots of pictures.
- Survey (500-2000 words): Be sure to include graphs, pictures, etc.
The Payoff:
If you want to write an article, you’ll get a big fat byline, plus a blurb at the bottom of the page explaining what it is that you do, and giving a link to your website.
A Note for Vendors:
We love vendors. Heck we’re vendors ourselves. All that we ask is that you follow our golden rule: Specific, Useful Information.
Say you’re in the business of selling advertising to software companies.
- Bad: “Why Advertising is a Good Bet For Software Companies”
- Good: “How to measure your ROI when you advertise”.
Pitch us:
We’d love to discuss your story ideas with you. You can email a 1-2 paragraph synopsis to starr (at) chatspring.com, and we’ll get in touch with you right away.
