A Guide to Contributing Articles

One of the principal reasons The Edge chose to redesign this website was to give our writers more flexibility when contributing articles. The following is a guide to help explain the process.

You no longer need to register or log on with our site to submit articles. You will only be asked to provide your name and email address.

Registering with our Site

Registering with our site provides you special privileges: You can submit your articles right here on our website, upload photos to accompany your articles, and maintain and modify your profile (bio), contact information and personal photo, all of which will appear at the end of each article added to our website. Registering is not part of our Email list. You will not receive any email blasts announcing updates or special promotions, unless you want to join our Email List here.

For those of you who have contributed any articles to The Edge in the past: Chances are very good that you already have a Author Profile. We created one when we moved your page here from our previous website. Search the archives by author. If your name is on this list, email editor@soulofthecities.net or call 651.578.8969 and I will help you log in.

For those of you who have not contributed articles to us in the past, visit our registration page and provide your name and email address to get started. A confirmation email will be sent to your email address with a link that allows you to log into our site for the first time. The email will contain a unique password that you can change when you edit your Profile information.

When you log in, you will immediately be taken to our Submissions page, where you can immediately submit an article for our consideration. When you submit an article, the editor is immediately notified and then he will consider it for publication in The Edge magazine.

Edit Profile Information

Along the left sidebar of every page on our site is a quick link where you can edit your Profile information as a contributor on this site:

• User Name is the name that you will use to log in at SouloftheCities.net.
• Contact Info is data that will be included in your Author Profile, including your website and your chat names if you want us to look you up.
• About Yourself includes the brief bio that will be included at the end of each article that you have published on this site. Please keep it brief. You may include books you have written, projects you have worked on or other facts that you’d like the world to know about you. No contact information [phone, email, website] is included here.
• New Password is your opportunity to simplify your log in password to something you can remember.
• Networking Information is where you can designate your email address, phone, address and Facebook page to be seen by readers. If you have a business, this is highly recommended, as our site will create a google map for the location you submit here.

Show My Author Page

Also on the left sidebar of every page on our site is a quick link to your Author page. Here, you can quickly edit your bio here without going to the Edit Profile page. On this page, every article that you currently have in our database is listed for quick access by the public. Readers may choose to search for articles by author. When they select your name, this is the page they will see.

Your Gravatar

Our website is linked to gravatar.com, a site that stores a photo with your email address. A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, and now they are available on gravatar-enabled sites where you post articles and comment on articles. Signing up for a gravatar.com account is FREE, and all that’s required is your email address and photo. Once you’ve signed up you can upload your avatar image. Just have your photo ready to link from your computer. Soon you’ll start seeing it on gravatar-enabled sites!

Last…but not least

One final note on submitting articles to The Edge magazine: Comments. The Edge magazine now has a website that allows greater participation between contributors and readers. We allow anyone who visits the site to comment at the end of an article. No log in or sign up is necessary. All comments are screened by The Edge magazine before they are posted to the site to ensure that postings are not offensive, indecent or objectionable. [See our Terms of Service.] We intend that Comments will be a way to promote dialogue on topics that arise from contributions – and a way to allow readers to participate more in The Edge magazine. We hope you view all comments in the spirit of that participation, not as statements directed to you personally as a contributor.