Site News & Announcements

Promotions To Preferred Author

Greetings Members!

A common question from new Writing.Com members is "How do I get
promoted from Registered to Preferred Author?" This email covers
some of the most important factors in our process.

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:: Promotions To Preferred Author ::
Reviewing other members within the Writing.Com community is one of the
easiest ways to work toward a promotion. To be promoted, a member must
have given at least 50 helpful reviews to a variety of other members.
Remember that a good review will be honest, encouraging and respectful.
By sending useful feedback to fellow authors, you will also be on your way
to another factor in our process: "positive involvement within Writing.Com."

An editorial regarding this factor was recently showcased in our Noticing
Newbies newsletter and we wanted to share it with the rest of the site. The
main topic of the editorial covered two important factors of promotion, as
listed in our FAQ:
         http://www.writing.com/main/faq#become_pref

A portion of Pita 's letter follows:

Of the criteria listed [in our FAQ], two points really popped out
at me as the most important and maybe as the most mysterious:

1. "Positive involvement within Writing.Com and its community."

2. "Interaction with other members of Writing.Com"

Both of these selection criteria focus on being good, active members
of a community. Writing.Com is a specialized community of readers and
writers, yet we all bring to the table vastly different experiences, ages,
nationalities and backgrounds. Some site members are as young as seven,
others are great-grandparents. The level of writing ability ranges from
published professionals, writers that hold advanced degrees in English
literature, a poet who is in middle-school, or a grandfather who did not
finish high school and writes family lore and legends so they cannot be
lost or forgotten.

In such a wildly vast and different community, how do we demonstrate
"positive interaction?" Well, the obvious first place to start would be in
a smaller chunk of it, in a message forum, such as "Noticing Newbies" or
"Writing.Com General Discussion". You can click on the message forum
icon/link and you'll see a listing of all the message fora, the most recently
active being listed first. First find a forum with a topic that interests you,
then get involved.

You could start out by first reading the rules of the forum carefully, then
posting a bit about yourself, state what you need help with, then add the
forum to your favorite's list, that way you could see every time someone
posted to that forum. (And don't forget to rate and review the forum too!)

Being a positive community member means that you engage in conversations
that are positive, whether in a forum or IM. You can debate but it should
be done respectfully, knowing we all agree to disagree, without getting
personal. It means you don't flame people or rage against them by harassing
them. Imagine how shocked you'd feel if you found out the person you were
ranting at was only nine?

Being a member of a community doesn't imply you belong to forty different
groups or post in forty fora, but it does mean you are adding, in a small
positive way, to whichever segment of this vast community that your feel
interests you.


We want to thank Pita for writing the editorial and we
encourage all Registered Authors to look over our FAQ to review the other factors.
         http://www.writing.com/main/faq#become_pref


:: DISCOUNTED Spring 2003 costumicon Subscriptions ::
costumicons are once again available for purchase! This subscription will last
through noon on April 14th, 2003. Subscribe to or change your current
costumicon from the "My Account" area or directly at:
         http://www.Writing.com/main/my_account.php?action=ea_form&type=costumicon


:: Don't Forget Our Self Publishing Showcase ::
The field of publishers in our showcase has been updated and narrowed.
The look of the page has also been updated. If you've decided to take the
next step in writing, check this list first for all of your publishing needs!
It is available from the "Item Jumps" pull down as 8. Self Publishing
or directly at:
         http://www.writing.com/main/showcase.php?t=pod&i=501

:: Convention 2003 Coming Soon! ::
The Writing.Com 2003 Convention is fast approaching! Find out more
about this amazing 4 day / 3 night event, August 15th - 18th, 2003:

Writing.Com Convention 2006  [13+] #518723 Complete info for Convention 2006, including itinerary, travel information, cost, etc. by The StoryMistress

Invalid Item  [] # by A Guest Visitor

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Thank you for your continued support of Writing.Com!
  ~~ The StoryMistress and
         The StoryMaster