So, you are interested in learning about writing for the Empire Building Network. That’s great! First, you should know that all contributions are welcome. You don’t have to be a Hemmingway or top of the leader board to contribute, but more about that in a moment.
Our goal is to create a group of authors getting more exposure together than any one of us could on our own. Discovering good content on Empire Avenue is hard. So, we want the Empire Building Network to become known as the place for tips and discussion about Empire Avenue. The site is already getting hundreds of visits putting us well on our way.
This text is a little long as it gives you lots of background. The short version is: If you write something about EA and email it to us, we’ll post it for you and help you connect it to Empire Avenue. 
That’s it.
Getting Started
The process to start blogging with us is very simple. You can write as much or as little as you want. You email a story and we post it for you. That’s the heart of it. We want to make this easy for you. For a first post, we like to start with a photo of you. So, feel free to send one along. You can use the contact us link on this site or email us at pitcher (at) rogers (dot) com.
The rest of the process just helps us promote you more. Here’s the other steps:
- Send us some info about yourself. It should be two or three lines. It gets added in such a way that it automatically appears at the end of your posts. Include the full URL to your to your Empire Avenue profile.
- Create an avatar. Go to http://en.gravatar.com/ and add an online avatar if you don’t have one already. This automatically adds your photo to each of your posts.
- Link the feed to EA. Putting in your name, the direct URL for author posts is:
http://empirebuilding.net/author/firstname-lastname/
The RSS feed link is as follows: http://empirebuilding.net/author/firstname-lastname/feed/
- Verify your Feed. Empire Avenue will ask you to insert a verification code into your blog. Email us the code and we will take care of that for you. Once we have inserted the code, we will let you know and you can have EA verify it.
- Upgrade to a blog. You can ask EA to upgrade the status of your links from a feed to a blog. This gets you way more credit. You also want to get five endorsements and we can help with that too.
If you become a regular contributor to Empire Building, we will give you direct access for posting your content. For now though, you can just email it.
Writing
Your post can take any form you like. We have already had a video post for example. We assume you are writing, but we love audio, video and photo blog entries too. Just remember that it should be your content and that EA does not allow you to use the same content in another connected feed.
Your content can be about anything related to Empire Avenue. We seek to provide tips and advice, general discussion and profiles of the people on EA. You can write about your own personal experiences, sharing something as simple as what you think of Empire Avenue. Don’t worry if you are not an expert at trading or social media. You can still share things you have learned. Feel free to promote yourself or your business, but do so in the context of a story. Explaining how you think EA is going to help you outside the site is a great approach.
Don’t ask people to buy your shares. Finally, we are not prudes, but remember that we are writing for an audience that does include minors.
If you need help developing a topic, you can find some information on Empire Building to get you started. Here’s a link to that post: http://empirebuilding.net/be-quiet-so-i-can-take-your-money/ Feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss possible topics, but as long as it’s about EA, anything is fine.
As for a title for your post, you are more than welcome to select one or to leave that up to us. Give a read of the post titles on the site already. You will see that we go for something catchy, but obviously related to the content.
Another detail, if you view the website, you will see that there is a line inserted at the end of the first paragraph. It is the link to the full article. It says, ‘Next,’ followed by a short teaser on what comes next. So, please add this line.
Finally, don’t worry if you are not a great writer. We are going for authenticity, not poetry. So, don’t try to overdo it. You are chatting with friends, and can be casual with them.
Closing
Again, if you have any questions or anything you would like to discuss, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We are excited about the possibilities at Empire Avenue and Empire Building alike – not to mention the possibilities for us. Here’s to our mutual success.
