Foothill Cities Blog Seeking Contributors

Foothill Cities is undertaking a writers drive and everyone is welcome to become a blogger, so jump over to their blog and see if this might tickle your fancy by writing for a blog that stands out in the Blogosphere.

From: Centinel
To: Readers

Hey folks,

Most of you have already heard that we're adding contributors to the blog (and a number of you have already volunteered posts and ideas).

http://thefcblog.com/2007/08/30/2230/

I just wanted to give everyone a better idea of what the whole idea of "writing for the FC" is about. Really, for folks who already have their own blog, it's not really about writing for us at all. You can cross-post and link back to your blog on anything you do. As some have already suggested, you can give a summary of an argument you make on your own blog and keep the full story at home. Basically, we think that a rising tide raises all boats. We've been able to get some attention for the FC as a region (see the fact that LA Observed - http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2007/08/help_wanted.php) jumped on our announcement that we were inviting contributors), and we think things can only benefit from drawing more eyes to local blogs of all kinds. Due to the intermittent links we get from a variety of blogs, we know that a lot of the bloggers that can add traffic and direct eyeballs read our site regularly. Problem is, we spend a lot of time linking through to the great stuff that you write, which unfortunately detracts from the stuff that we'd love to talk about.

So, basically, we'd like to cut out the middleman in a sense. Anyone who would like can become a contributor to the blog. That greatly expands the type of content showing up on the FC Blog and gives people like Tony Pierce and Kevin Roderick and the people at Eater LA and all a much more diverse selection of things to link to. End result, in a perfect world, is that your work gets seen by the bigger eyes and since you're linking back to your own site, they can direct traffic your way.

Obviously, we benefit because it would help our blog traffic. But blogging isn't exactly lucrative and with our identities hidden we don't stand to profit much by fame. Rather, the real benefit is that it would free us up to write about the things that we love most and give you a chance to do the same on the FC Blog. So, instead of our occasional and haphazard photos received via email, you put up your sweet photo-essay (like Kelly's recent cameraphone trip along Orange Grove). The quality of the blog becomes uniformly excellent.

Happily, this isn't a zero-sum game. We think that the more contributors we get, the more eyes are going to be seeing everyone's blogs, not just the FC. Rising tide, ships rising and all that. With the FC Blog as an intermediary, there's cross-pollination of readers. Folks who come to read about Tableau's latest recipe will stay to laugh their ass off at Proctor's take on the Council or get involved in a discussion over at the Underbelly (and maybe some will stick around to argue with me over the merits of light rail).

Again, everyone has their byline and can link and cross-post (so long as it's simultaneous). You can use a real name or one of your own manufacture. All we do is hit the publish button after you've finished your draft: this serves as a screed-filter (just in case) and drinking and blogging accidents (cough cough, Havish, cough).

Thanks again to all who have already emailed. I'm setting up contributor accounts and you should be ready to go by tomorrow. If you have any questions, just drop a line.
-- -- Centinel

P.S. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think who might be interested, blogger or no. The more the merrier in this happy band of bloggers...

P.P.S. If anyone likes prodding under the hood of websites, we're retarded when it comes to this "web code language" thing, so we can always use help in that regard, as well.

P.P.P.S. And for you city council staffers who have emailed us before, we won't discriminate: even political staff can weigh in...so long as you're not just shills for the man (woman).