Studio Blog

Since we announced our Contributor Awards, we’ve heard many of you ask how our editorial team decided who is the “best of the best.”
   
Truth be told, it was hard. Our editorial team spent hours poring over our writers, copy editors, titlers and bloggers, trying to decide what exactly constitutes “best.” It was a close race but in the end, we chose winners based on impeccable work, passion for Demand Media Studios and dedication to always getting better.

But that’s not the only question we received. So many of you also want to know: what’s their secret?

To uncover the secrets, tips and tricks of our top contributors, we conducted interviews, sent out surveys and commissioned videos to truly surface their secrets. Throughout the week, we’ll be featuring an interview, blog or video from at least one of our winners.

To kick off the series, we wanted to share some top tips from a variety of our winners. We’ll continue to share more tips, along with a featured winner each day.


“Create a ‘flow’ that works for you. Last year I was completing my first novel. For a while, my goal was to work for X-number of hours on fiction and X-number on articles daily. But I gave myself permission to spend more time on my novel if it was really flowing...and equal permission to work on articles if I met a creative slump or needed to let a part of my novel marinate.” – August McLaughlin, writer

“Mornings are best [for writing], but all too often I ended up with late nights to get as much done as I could for the day. And I hate doing that. The more you accomplish early, the better you feel to keep going and pull off a great goal for the day. Nothing feels better than knowing you've written X amount of articles by lunchtime. Makes the rest of the day less stressful to be over the hump.” – James Highland, writer

“The difference between how I edit now and when I began is that I…look through the entire piece before I start editing to get a feel for it and to judge whether I think I can approve on first read or will have to send back, which then informs how closely I edit.” – Suzanne Tarrant, Copy Editor