Thank you for your interest in our new Travel Correspondent Corps on Gather.com. We are gearing up to launch the Travel Channel and are looking for excellent writers passionate about travel who are looking to gain national exposure and create an engaged community around their work.
We will be reviewing applicants' writing samples over the next few weeks and invite you to submit a brief piece of writing for evaluation by our Travel Channel Manager. We are running our writing sample submission process on TravelCorps.Gather.com to ensure that we select great writers who are comfortable publishing online using our platform. For the Travel Corps, we will be selecting only 8 writers nationally.
Finalists will be selected upon review of their work, so we encourage you to submit your sample article as soon as you are ready. If you have any concerns while publishing your writing sample, please contact us at: bureauchief@gatherinc.com and we would be happy to walk you through our publishing tool and answer any of your questions.
Writing Sample Submission Process:
1. Join the Travel Corps group on Gather.com.
Just click on the link below and fill out the short registration form. Once you do that, you will be made a Gather member and a member of the Travel Correspondent Corps group at the same time. Registration is free and only takes a couple of minutes.
http://travelcorps.gather.com/groupEvent.jsp
2. Publish your writing sample.
- You should now be inside the group you joined and logged into Gather. Select “Publish” from the tab in the top right navigation bar. (If for some reason you were not deposited inside the group you joined, simply log into Gather using your new username and password and select the "Publish" tab from the top right navigation bar.
- Click the orange "Publish An Article" button.
- Insert "Travel Writing Sample - <Your City, State>" as your article title. Ex: "Travel Writing Sample - Boston, MA"
- Type or paste your writing sample (at least 500 words) into our publishing tool in the main text box.
- Under the main text box is the "tags" box. Insert the tags: Writing Sample, Travel Corps
- Click "Continue"
- When you reach "Who Can View My Article", choose "Select People and Groups" and then check the "Travel Corps" group box below.
- Click publish. Your writing sample will now appear in the Travel Corps group.
3. Compensation
Our correspondents will be compensated through the Gather earnings program. When a member first joins the site, they begin earning Gather Points based on their activity, which can be redeemed for merchandise from our merchant partners. Members who contribute a high volume of quality content have the opportunity to join the Gather Cash Earnings program, by which their earnings are converted directly to cash and can be redeemed at any time for a check. As an official correspondent, you will be converted directly to the Gather Cash Earnings program. Corps members will additionally receive a $100 monthly expense stipend toward the cost of attending any events, buying books, products, etc. Opportunities for quarterly bonuses and additional promotional support from Gather will also exist for the best writers.
For more information regarding the Gather earnings programs see our FAQ: http://www.gather.com/faqs.jsp?cat=compensationsystem
4. Next Steps.
The Travel Channel Manager will be in touch with all Correspondent Corps applicants over the next few weeks. If we love your work, we will schedule a follow up interview to chat with you more about Gather.com, the new Travel Correspondent program, and your specific topical interests. The selected 8 Corps will then be contacted by the Channel Manager to finalize program details.
All Finalists selected by Gather will be interviewed in person by a Gather representative visiting your city. If you have any questions while publishing your writing sample, please contact us at: bureauchief@gatherinc.com and we would be happy to answer any questions
Learn more about Gather Channels at GatherCorps.gather.com
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Comments: 11
Will this disqualify me? Shall I resubmit as new with the requisite title, or will the tags suffice?
since this rule does not state use only these tags, I assume it is ok to add other tags as well.
and I pasted the response below -- underlining part relevant to my question:
Hi Everyone,
I want to thank you all for your interest in the new Gather Correspondent Corps program. Over the last few days we have received a number of wonderful writing samples and we are just beginning to review all the submissions. In the meantime, I wanted to address a few of the concerns and questions that you have raised.
Q. Why Gather left out various categories, such as arts and crafts, sports, environmental, motorcycles etc.
A. This is just phase one of Channels on Gather. We selected the topics with the most broad-based appeal that already have a large following on Gather. There are certainly many other topics on Gather- from parenting to photography - that meet that criteria and that we hope to add to the channel list later in the year – so we're always open to suggestions. In the interim, please remember we have over 6,000 groups on Gather on virtually every subject imaginable and over 37,000 specific category tags that Gather members are writing about.
Q. Why is the Gather Correspondent Corps only open to U.S. Residents?
A. As Travis B. hinted at, this is purely a finance issue. As of yet, we do not have an international Gather payment or points system. However, we fully understand and appreciate the need to have a global community and international involvement. In fact it is one of our goals to become more international. It is in our plan to globalize the Gather points system and include those people not living in the U.S. and/or citizens of other nations to redeem their points on Gather. In the meantime, we sincerely hope and encourage our international Gatherer's to contribute to these channels and keep in mind that great content – correspondents or not – can always be featured and facilitate engaging conversation. Additionally, we are working on an alternative way to involve international Gatherers even before the financial obstacles are resolved so stay tuned and keep writing.
Q. Gather members who submit an article and are not using the correct tags will not be selected because they are not following the rules.
A. I want to clarify this concern because it is extremely important that everyone understands that the Gather Correspondent Corps program is not a contest. Correspondents will be chosen exclusively by the Gather Channel Team. The Channel Team will review writing samples, conduct interviews and choose those writers that they believe will best perform the duties of Gather Correspondent. Therefore, while it is certainly ideal that all submissions are tagged and titled correctly, if an applicant makes a mistake this by no means disqualifies them from being considered for the Gather Correspondent Corps.
Q. What is the timeline for participating in the Gather Correspondent Corps program?
A. Gather will be selecting Corps members on a rolling basis so the earlier you get in your writing sample the better. As you know, we will be selecting a limited number of Correspondents for each channel; however these positions will be fluctuating throughout the year. We will be adding and new correspondents continuously throughout the year so there is no final deadline.
Q. Can we submit numerous samples and do they have to be on a specific genre
A. You can submit as many samples as you like – just post them to the appropriate Corps group. The sample should be an example of the type of writing that you would do if you were a Correspondent for the Channel in question – ie: movie channel writing samples should be about movies.
Q. Can you be under 18?
A. Unfortunately no. For the time being, this program is only open to people 18 or older.
Thank you to eveyrone for your interest int his program. We look forward to reading each of your writing samples over the next few weeks and if you have any further questions or concerns feel free to email us at bureauchief@gatherinc.com
Gather Bureau Chief commented Jan 5, 2007