Department(s):
Welcome to Pack Rat Magazine! The online publication dedicated to helping people turn what they have into what they want. We love new ideas and we love hearing from you. If you would like to submit an article, we just have a few itsy bitsy guidelines we’d like you to follow.
Who We Are & What We Do:
The voice of our magazine is fun and familiar, like talking shop with your goofy best friend. We are lovers of jokes, especially puns. We get excited about glitter, glue guns, digging in the trash and scrounging through flea markets. For more insight into what makes us tick, check out our about pack rat section. For a look at who our audience is, check out a snapshot of our prototypical reader . And, the best way to get an idea of what we’re looking for in an article, check out our articles section and give a couple a read through.
What’s In It For You:
Sadly we cannot pay you for your articles. But, if you have a website, myspace page, or blog that you’re trying to promote, we’ll slap a big ol’ link to it underneath your byline. Plus, you will have the satisfaction of knowing people are reading your words and totally loving it.
Types of Articles We Are Looking For:
If you have an idea of an article or an article already completed, please email us.
DIY Tutorial Guidelines:
We are looking primarily for crafting instructions that someone with a low budget could make; in fact, the cheaper the better. A good rule of thumb to follow is: if it takes you more than $30 to make it yourself, or if there is special equipment involved (like a kiln or a miter saw) then it probably isn’t for our readers. Otherwise the sky is the limit.
Each article should include a price guide with approximate costs for each of the materials used. An average cost should be displayed to indicate the overall price range of the project.
When writing your article, try to break down the project into short steps, no more than four or five sentences long each.
Please cut your article from a Word document and paste it into the message field of our contact form. Upon acceptance of your article we would appreciate at least one digital picture of the finished project. We will accept anything in jpeg, tif, and png. Questions? Contact us.
Interview/Profile Guidelines:
We LOVE hearing about creative people, places and things. If you know someone who is doing something unusual with their creative energy, or if you know of an event or place that stands out as unique, those are the kind of things that fit our bill. Of course, if the places is inexpensive, or if the person makes affordable crafts/art then all the better for our readers. But Pack Rat is also about inspiration, and even if the price is out of our typical $30 price range, if it is interesting and unique, we still want to know about it.
We’re looking primarily for interviews with some description of the person/place and what the allure is, but we’ll take a straight up Q&A if the answers are meaty enough.
Reviews:
We have two review sections and you can choose to write for either.
Our “What It’s Worth” section is dedicated to music, movies, books, websites, craft products (think Bedazzler), etc. We are looking for reviews that are 300 words or less. If you choose to review something for this section, please summarize your take on the product with a "bottom line" statement and rate it based on a five star rating system.
Ex. Bottom Line: Pricess Bride is freaking awesome. 5 stars.
Our other review section is called “A Sure Thing.” This section involves reviews of older products, such a music, movies, books, websites, craft products, etc. that stand the test of time. These should only be things that you absolutely love. Again, we are looking of the review to be 300 words or less.
The Fine Print:
Please know that by submitting an article you are agreeing that on the condition of acceptance, we at Pack Rat may edit your article for space constraints, spelling, grammar, factual accuracy and minor stylistic alterations. Anything published by us will fall under the Pack Rat copyright, but if you want to submit something you wrote for us to another publication, that's permissible. Not too complicated, right? Well get crackin’ We can’t wait to read your stuff!
