DOING FREEDOM! -- Service for those who want to live freer now

Writers' Guidelines and Information

Editorial Policy

First things first: Article deadline- It's my intent to publish new DF! issues by the fifteenth of each month. To that end, I'd appreciate it very much if you'd get any articles to me by the first of the month, and no later than the tenth. Anything later than that will most likely be considered for the next month, unless we've already made other arrangements.

Since part of the point of having a live person as an editor is to utilize that person's experience, thoughts, and opinions, it would be... pointless for me to try to operate DF! as a robotic drone. As a human, I have biases. The Publisher of DF! chose me in part for those biases. I will be using them in making editorial decisions for DF!.

So it's only fair to let you know what those biases are, and a little about the background that generated them.

As best I can pin my political philosophy down to a single word, I'm an anarchocapitalist. I was essentially forced into that category - I started as a strict American-style Constitutionalist - by a government that continually demonstrated that it would break any rules imposed upon it in an unending quest for more power over those it views as serfs.

As an anarchocapitalist, you can also classify me as a small "el" libertarian (to distinguish me from those members of the Libertarian Party). I subscribe to the Zero-Aggression Principle (ZAP) as expressed by L. Neil Smith:

A Libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are Libertarians whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not Libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

First rule of proposed DF! material: I will not print any article which advocates violation of this ZAP, except and unless an article or essay is offered to directly refute advocacy of the ZAP, in a manner that I believe might meet the needs of our readers. In that event, I reserve the right to annotate the article in question with a statement that the piece may not represent the views of DF! or myself.

(Note to Feds: I particularly welcome any official statement from a government agency explaining how adherence to the ZAP can possibly make a person a terrorist.)

Aside from my role as an editor, I'm a writer. I even manage to pay some of my bills that way. While I do make errors, I try to generate a professional product.

Rule Two: Spell check and proofread your work before offering it to DF!. I will check any offering myself, but if I find too many errors, I'll kick it back to you to be fixed or abandoned. Try to be professional in your work.

I write (and read) plenty of opinion and commentary pieces. DF! will carry a few such. But that is not the main focus of Doing Freedom!; note that emphasis. If commentary is what you want, there are other fine publications out there. I happen to like The Libertarian Enterprise.

Rule Three: I prefer articles that tell HOW to do freedom. That could include a marksmanship tutorial, tips on the permanent tourist lifestyle, arbitration, self-sufficiency, or pretty much anything beyond simple political theory. Reports on freedom activities such as an LRT conclave or the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade are also welcome; but please be sure to respect the privacy of those you write about.

Life in a burgeoning dictatorship is grim enough. Free individuals need to have some fun, too.

Rule Four: Enjoyable fiction and humor pieces are welcome, too.

I usually do my Internet work over a POTS dial-up, without the nice data rates of ISDN, DSL, or cable modem.

Rule Five: Keep your bandwidth requirements low enough that the less-fortunate can also enjoy DF! This primarily affects graphics; keep the images in your article to the minimum necessary. Keep the pixel size and file size of those graphics to the minimum necessary, too; do you really need a 2048 x 1536 pixel, 24 million color BMP of a slingshot? Do you need 36 images to show how to whittle one?

Rule Six: Article length- there is no minimum or maximum length which I'll accept. Make it as long as necessary to get the data across, and no longer. That said, I've found that many people won't bother reading an article of more than 4-5 thousand words, or short stories more than ten thousand. Bear that in mind; if you need more words, consider marking optional points where your piece can be divided for serialization.

In some countries - sadly including the United States - exercising your freedom of speech by writing politically incorrect material can earn you a knock on the door by govgoons.

Rule Seven: Consider whether or not you wish to use an alias or pen name. If you do, so that our readers will know your qualifications, I suggest you create an entire persona that will help you write, and will help readers connect with you. An e-mail account that links only to this name is a good idea for receiving reader feedback as well.

I hate MS Word. And you and I may not have the same fancy fonts loaded on our respective machines. Too many word processors use proprietary formatting that other word processors can't interpret. So...

Rule Eight: Formatting.

Unless you've made arrangements with me in advance, I accept only plain ASCII text (*.txt).

Send your article as the body of an e-mail, not as an attachment; send it to me at doingfreedom@gbronline.com

Make sure special text (bold or italics, for example) words or phrases are clearly indicated; bold should be indicated by *asterisks* before and after the word or phrase, and italics by an _underline character_ before and after.

Payment

Like so many dot-coms, DF! hasn't exactly made a huge amount of money. At this time, I can make nominal payments for articles via E-Gold.

In addition, DF! lets you use voluntary "pay per view" system. This entails placing an online donation link on each article page. Such a link can use PayPal, Honor, e-gold, or any other service the author wishes. Thus, if a reader likes your piece she can click the link and donate an amount directly to your account.

In addition to this donation system - which ensures that any profits go directly to you the writer, without DF! taking a cut - I will give you a free banner link to be placed between the title and content of your article. This banner can link to any site of your choice - your own personal site, a favorite third party site, even another commercial, for-profit site. And that banner link will remain on the online archived article, as well.

For donation and banner link details, contact me at .

Copyrights

Without getting into the copyright/"information wants to be free" debate (I have my own ideas on this that differ from both the official gov party lines and that of the GNU World Order), ownership of your article remains with you. By sending Doing Freedom! an article for publication you grant us publication rights to that article from the time of submission until the next issue of Doing Freedom! after that in which your article appears is published, or two months after your article's publication, whichever period is shorter. In addition, Doing Freedom! reserves the right to re-print any article in an anthology of articles collected from DF! issues.

Example: You send your article "Peashooters for Fun and Profit" to me on July 2, 2002. It appears in the August issue of DF!, published on August 10, 2002. Assuming the next issue after that is published on September 10, 2002, all publication rights, other than our anthology right, then revert to you. If for some reason the next issue is delayed, regardless, publication rights revert to you no later than October 10, 2002.

Naturally, if your work is not accepted for publication, all rights remain with you.

Privacy

I encourage you to use PGP encryption to protect all correspondence. Why go to the trouble of creating a pen name and persona to protect your identity, and then send your article to me cleartext? Have you forgotten Carnivore/DCS1000? The US's disgusting USA PATRIOT Act? The UK's RIPA? In fact, because of gov snooping - and their anti-freedom tendency towards a hatred of free speech, I will not discuss some topics except under encryption, even though the topics may be perfectly legal and protected free speech if this were still a free country.

My PGP key is posted here for your use. When writing me, please include your own public key if I don't already have it.