Writing for LWN

Do you have expert knowledge of some aspect of the free-software community? Are you interested in looking into the development of free-software projects of various sorts? Do you have an urge to write high-quality articles for extremely picky editors and demanding readers? If so, writing for LWN may be for you. Please read on for information on how you can participate in the creation of LWN.

What we are after

LWN.net is seeking authors who can contribute articles on a freelance basis. Our needs fall into two areas: (1) "newsy" articles for the Weekly Edition, based on some recent event, discussion, release, new feature, or similar in the free-software world and (2) longer, feature articles that are not so tightly tied to this week's news. We are always looking for contributions to our Linux kernel coverage, in particular, but there are literally thousands of other projects with news that our readers would be interested in.

These articles run sometime during the week and are then collected up on the Front page of each weekly edition. They usually cover some topic from recent free and open-source software news (a release, mailing list discussion, plans made, etc.). Our general guideline is for articles to be around 1500 words in length, though somewhat longer or shorter can work too. The best articles cover a fairly narrow topic completely, without any big omissions or any extra padding.

We are generally looking for authors who have their own ideas on topics they want to write about. Looking at past weekly editions in the Archives is a good way to get an idea of the kinds of topics we cover and how we cover them.

Please note that we are, as a general rule, not looking for "how to" articles; there are plenty of other outlets for such content on the net. We're more interested in the current news and in informing our readers of interesting developments in the community that they may not have previously heard of.

We are especially interested in authors who follow an area well enough to propose topics for articles and follow through quickly.

How to contribute to LWN

If you wish to write one or more articles for LWN, the first order of business is to contact us (at [email protected]) to discuss your interests. Please do not just send articles without talking to us first. We'll discuss subjects and timelines and come to a determination on whether your contributions fit into LWN.

Please read our writing style information (below) so that you understand the kind of content we are looking for.

Before we can publish your work, we'll need full name and contact information from you. If you pay U.S. income taxes, we will need your tax ID number (and a completed withholding form) so that we can send you a 1099 form at the end of the year. If you are not subject to taxation in the U.S., we'll need a declaration from you to that effect.

Compensation

We will currently pay $300 for well-done articles from new authors. For kernel articles, which tend to be more complex, we start new authors at $350. Those figures do go up quite substantially for authors who, over time, establish a record of good writing and on-time contributions. We'll entertain proposals for in-depth articles (or a series of articles) of greater complexity at a higher price; please contact us if you have an idea you would like to pursue.

Payments are sent out by the 15th of the month for all articles published in the previous month. At this time, we are able to make payments via U.S. check, bank transfers via TransferWise, or PayPal.

Copyrights and further reproduction

Authors retain the copyrights for their work. We ask that you grant LWN exclusive rights to publish your work during the LWN subscription period - currently up to two weeks after publication. Thereafter, we retain the right to publish the material, and release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0). After the subscription period, authors may republish their work however they wish.

LWN style guide

The world is full of technical journalism sites. LWN tries to distinguish itself from the crowd through (1) a high degree of respect for its readers, (2) a high level of technical competence, and (3) top-quality writing. External contributions to LWN must fit those goals. To that end, we must be able to edit contributions before publication if required (though we much prefer to receive writing which requires little or no editing), and we must reserve the right not to publish work which, in our opinion, does not belong in LWN.

Audience. LWN's readers tend to be highly educated and strongly technical in their outlook. Some of them are likely to be developers for the project you are writing about. Should you feel the urge to "dumb down" material, that urge should be resisted. LWN is not "Linux news for dummies;" our readers are most emphatically not "dummies." If you talk down to them, or tell only part of the story, they will call you on it.

Style. Here is an in-progress list of style guidelines for articles in LWN. They reflect the practice we have lived by since 1998, but never really documented before.

The overall voice of an article should be factual and authoritative. Do your research, and let it show. LWN has a long history of allowing the author's opinion to show through in its writing; in our opinion, it is better to let the audience know where the author is coming from than to try to adopt some pose of "objectivity." Opinions, however, should never get in the way of the facts; your reader should be able to separate the two.

Document your sources. If you are working from a press release, or a message on a mailing list, link to it. Always let your readers know where your information is coming from; many of them will follow the links for articles of interest and come to their own conclusions.

LWN is produced in the United States, and uses American English. The American variety is not in any way better than any other (though writing in Pidgin would present certain challenges to our readers), but lack of consistency can be distracting.

Be concise. Try to find a way to get your information across with a small number of well-chosen words.

Acronyms should be spelled out on their first use, except for the most common and obvious ones (i.e. GNU, GPL). Excessive use of acronyms can make articles harder to read and understand. Also, please avoid the use of informal terms when real terms can be used; thus, for example, "distribution" is always preferable to "distro".

Still interested?

Drop us a note and let's talk.