Seen it? Heard it? YOU Can Blog It!

Are you passionate about something in the Larkspur-Corte Madera area? Or maybe you just want hundreds of people to blog to every day?

Start blogging on Patch. It's free and fun.

The Larkspur-Corte Madera Patch is looking for news and views from the entire Twin Cities area, including Greenbrae and Kentfield. Patch is YOUR online community.

Whether it's sports, family, gardening, history, schools, government, business, technology, social issues, shopping, running or hamster training techniques—if it's your thing, we'd like you to consider blogging with Patch.

Want to write about community gardens? SMART? The PTA? Go ahead. Anyone may apply to do it. Parents, crafters, train enthusiasts, non-profit organizers, lawyers, grandparents, favorite aunties, shopkeepers, baristas, hobbyists, and government officials are a few examples.

It's a chance to share your expertise and your voice with a wider audience. Don't be shy! Get in touch with Patch about your ideas. We want to hear what you have to say.

It's also a good way to get your name and game out there if you are looking for other work. You can post your own videos and photos, too. 

Try it, you may like it. No longterm leases, mortgages, deposits or down payments required. Low overhead.

Patch bloggers are not paid and will own their blogs, so if you are already blogging and want to share with Patch users too — step lively and all aboard!

Contact Patch Editor Derek Wilson, derek.wilson@patch.com if you want to join the conversation—and the 21st century. It's a click away.

Patch Blogging FAQ

• Blog as often as you like
• No need to "pitch" ideas before submitting posts
• Short to medium is best, but any length is accepted
• A conversational, informal style is ideal
• Use hyperlinks whenever relevant, especially when referring to another web page or site
• You retain all rights to your work

A reminder: We reserve the right to remove objectionable, inaccurate, or inflammatory material and, if necessary, suspend or revoke blogging privileges. Disallowed material includes propagating conspiracy theories and blogging about behind-the-scenes housekeeping issues that are not of interest to the general public and should instead be dealt with by communicating directly with the Patch editor. In addition, our policy requires factual inaccuracies to be corrected or retracted within 24 hours of being alerted to the error.

Disclosure: In an effort to be as transparent with our readers as possible, we require Patch bloggers to disclose any financial conflicts of interest related to the issue they are writing about. If a blogger receives payment or income from a company, organization, group, or individual with a financial stake in the issue he/she is weighing in on, that information must be disclosed at the bottom of the applicable blog post. 

Corrections and Substantive Edits: If you make a substantive addition, deletion or correction of an error to a blog post after the post has been published, you are required to note this change at the bottom of your post. This guideline applies to all matters of fact, but not to issues of spelling, grammar, style, or minor editorial corrections you make to your post. In the interest of transparency, you should note to readers that in an earlier version of the post there was an error that has since been corrected. 

Credentials: As a Patch blogger, you must acquire an official letter of approval from a Patch editor in order to cover an event for Patch. Without proper editorial approval, you must not identify yourself as a representative of Patch while attending events. To request a letter of approval, please email your Patch editor.

We greatly appreciate the contributions of our community of Patch bloggers and welcome an ongoing dialogue between our editors and our bloggers as we continue to work together.

This is the style guide we'll use when we edit your posts. Please help us get your posts up faster by following this style guide yourself. We hate to be picky, but here goes:

• Our most effective posts fall in the 500 to 800 range; a full op-ed length may be too long to hold a reader's attention.
• If your post is especially long, it may take us longer than 24 hours to get to it.

• Capitalize the first letter of every word, except for articles and prepositions three letters or less (so "From" is capitalized, but "for" is not; "Is" always gets capitalized)
• Clear, descriptive titles work better than cute or punny ones. What would you enter into Google if you were trying to find this article? That's usually the best way to start your title.
• Please no all-caps, but if you want to emphasize a word, add italics by selecting the important word or phrase and hitting the "I" button above the editing window (or typing Ctrl+I - or on a Mac, Command-I).

• book titles
• movie titles
• newspaper titles (after "the")
• magazine titles
• television show names
• play titles

To apply any of these formatting options to words or segments of text, simply highlight the text you want to format, and click the "B", "I", or "U" buttons above the entry box, which will wrap the proper code around the selected text and make it appear formatted as chosen when the post is published onto the site.

Any time you reference an article or a website, readers always appreciate when you hyperlink it (make it clickable to the relevant page). To hyperlink text, follow these steps:

1. Find the URL (web address, i.e. "http://www.webaddresshere.com") you want, and "copy" it so it's stored, as you'll "paste " it in a couple steps
2. In the entry body where you post, highlight the segment of text or word you want to be clickable
3. Click the middle chain-link shaped button (between the U button and the envelope symbol) above the entry box, which will make a small window appear
4. Paste the full web address (http:// and everything) that you copied in step 1 into that window
5. Click "OK"
6. The proper code will wrap around the words you selected and the link will be clickable when the post is published

If there are any keywords missing from the headline or the first paragraph of the article, you can add that keyword to the Tags field. Separate multiple keywords with commas.

To upload photos, videos, or PDFs to accompany your blog post, select the “Choose Files” button under the Upload Media heading. A pop-up will appear to let you find the file on your computer and post it.

To make a change to your bio, click on your name at the upper right corner of any page. This will bring you to your profile home. Click on “Edit Profile,” edit your “About Me” information and click “Save.”

To change your profile photo, click on your name at the upper right corner of any page. This will bring you to your profile home. Click on “Profile Photos,” edit your “About Me” information and click “Save.”

We encourage contributors to promote their pieces and send them around -- many readers arrive at pieces on Patch via links passed on from friends and other sites. Here are a couple ideas:

Email lists: Send a short note with a link to your post to any lists you're on -- whether social organizations, extracurricular groups, or even just your typical family/friends list. Encourage them to comment! Our experience shows that often the more comments a post attracts, the better it does in generating clicks and more comments. Create a community around your post, and help it grow by starting with your own personal community. Encourage your friends to share it as well.

Facebook/Twitter: Share your post via Facebook or Twitter! (You can use the handy social tools provided with your published post.)

Blogs that cover the topic you're writing about: Most blogs will have a 'contact' email for their proprietor. If you've written something you think a specific blog might be interested in, send it their way with a brief, polite note explaining why you thought they might find it interesting (don't send them everything you write, and don't send to multiple blogs simultaneously, i.e., 'spam' them). It also doesn't hurt to reference individual posts that they've written in your posts, by linking to them.

Respond to Comments: Responding to comments on your own post helps the community grow around it.