MyHoustonLife is looking for energetic and motivated writers to contribute to our site!
Whether you are an experienced writer or haven’t written anything since grade school, we want you to write for us. All that is required is that you share the same love for our great town as we do!
MHL is also introducing a rewards program for our regular contributors. Earn points for every article that you submit and is chosen to be posted. Earn enough points and you will receive rewards such as gift cards, event tickets, etc!
Q. I have never used WordPress or any other blogging or website building tools before.
That’s ok. As a contributor, you will rarely, if ever, have to deal with actual coding or website configuration. WordPress provides a visual editor that works very similar to applications like Microsoft Word.
You can also review guides and tutorials on how to write articles for MHL here.
Q. How does the rewards system work?
Once you have registered an account with MyHoustonLife and it has been reviewed and approved, you will be able to start submitting posts to our site. Every post that you submit will be moderated and reviewed by our editors. If your post is approved and published, you will receive points for that post. The amount of points that you receive will be based on the following preset scale:
- Post about food or restaurant w/ pictures = 5 points
- Post about a club or bar w/ pictures = 10 points
- Post about community, fashion, or local arts w/ pictures = 15 points
- Post covering an event w/ pictures = 20 points
- Video posts will vary in point value, contact MHL for more information
A widget will be available within your log in that will show how many points you have accumulated. When you have gotten enough points to qualify for a reward, you can either choose to receive that reward or keep your points for better incentives!
You will also earn points for staying active on the site so be sure to comment of other articles to get extra points!
Q. What about writing MyHoustonLife features?
Because our featured stories gain more exposure than the day-to-day posts on our site, submitted feature articles will be moderated more closely than general posts. This also means that if one of your submitted feature stories is published, you will receive 25 points towards your account total.
To submit a featured story, you must first email your idea to info@myhoustonlife.com and be approved as a featured story. If your idea is not approved as a feature, it is still eligible for publishing as a regular post. All featured story submissions must contain pictures.
Q. Why did my submission not get published?
There are a few reasons why your submission may not have gotten published on MyHoustonLife. If you wrote about a subject that our editors did not feel was representative of our mission to highlight all things uniquely Houston, it is likely that your submission was rejected. For example, if you are submitting articles about your meal at Whataburger or Jack in the Box, they will likely get rejected. Also, if you have submitted an article that is too similar to an existing article on the site, it will likely get a reject.
If your article does not get posted on our site, don’t get discouraged! Keep submitting content!
Q. I’ve been approved! Now what?
Congrats! Welcome to the team! The first thing you should do is read over our Contributor Guide for a quick overview of how to create, edit and submit articles.
