Interested in writing for CLUAS?

Then we ask you to first spend a quick moment reading this info...

As you've probably gathered, CLUAS is an open platform to which music-related articles authored by music fans can be published. We do not publish everything that is submitted to us, but we do publish all submissions that are well-written (and be sure to check out our very helpful and to the point Guide for Good Writing). We are particularly interested in adding new talent to the growing CLUAS writing community, so please do not in any way be intimidated about submitting something if you have not yet had anything published on CLUAS. If the truth is to be known, the vast majority of CLUAS writers were never published in any other publication before their first article appeared on CLUAS.

To put it simply, anybody and everybody is welcome - and encouraged - to write for the site. We have however only one rule for people who have not previously submitted an article to CLUAS, which we outline below...

We request that the first review ever submitted by a prospective writer is NOT a review of a concert or an album by a new act (one that, for example, might not have a record deal, one that might have just started gigging or recording, one that basically does not have a real track record). Any such submissions from first time CLUAS writers will not be published. "What!!!”, you scream, “and CLUAS has the audacity to say it lends an ear to the Irish music scene?!?!”. Hear us out as there is a clear reason for this policy.

In the past first-time writers have often submitted reviews of gigs or albums by a brand new act that none on the editorial team had ever even heard of. From one point of view that is - of course - not a problem for us: the more emerging acts we get to know of, the better.

However quite often we noted that these reviews from writers who had never previously written for CLUAS were bursting with the most over the top, fawning praise for the new act in question and often were littered with lazy, finger-down-the-back-of-the-throat clichés lacking in any sort of credibility (like “This brand new band is the greatest thing to ever hit the Dublin scene” and "Be sure to catch this band in a small venue soon as an act this talented will quickly be moving on to bigger things").

Too often the suspicion arose that these reviews were written by someone a bit too close to the band (if not even someone in the band themselves) in an effort to seek a dose of publicity for the act early in their career. (And yes, in the past there has been more than one such instance where we were able to definitively establish that a band member had written such a fawning review, you can check out one entertaining example here). Such articles go against the spirit of the CLUAS site and, for obvious reasons of trying to maintain some minimum level of editorial credibility, such submitted articles will not published to the CLUAS site.

In light of such possible submissions from new writers we now explicitly ask first-timers when submitting an article to CLUAS to avoid writing about a new band on the scene in their first submission. Harsh and all as it may appear to some, we will simply not publish it if it is the writer's first ever submission to the site. Instead we invite potential new writers to first submit an article about any established act out there and in so doing you can start getting your credibility established among the community of CLUAS writers. Once that is achieved, please feel free to submit as many articles you like about upcoming, new and emerging acts.

And while we're at it, one final reminder that we do not pay writers for articles published to the CLUAS site. The site's income through advertising is used to cover the monthly web hosting costs we incur.

All that remains to be said is to familiarise yourself with our Guidelines for Writing a Decent Article and then get submitting your gig reviews here and your album reviews here.

Cheers.

eoghan

Eoghan O'Neill
High Chief in Editorial matters
www.CLUAS.com - lending an ear to the Irish music scene

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