The world’s changing. But in a good way. We think cannabis legalization is going to happen—and soon. This will result in (and partially be the result of) a total shift in how society thinks about drugs.

Think of all the people who will be pissed off when they realize that the government has been lying to them, locking countless non-violent drug offenders in jail and pushing the economy ever-closer to disaster. There may be a backlash. There may not. Legalization may never happen. But regardless, we at Hotbox feel it is important to study the phenomenon of drug usage in North America and provide critical insight into how these substances effect society.

We also believe that anybody with a message should be able to say it. It doesn’t mean that everyone will listen—or should—but the ability to communicate that message should at least be present. To this end, we are working to make Hotbox Magazine a collective enterprise open to all. Not only that, we don’t think there should be technological barriers to allowing the spread of ideas. You don’t have to be a professional writer to work for Hotbox. Our editors can help you improve your writing and get it to a level that allows you to effectively communicate with a mass audience. You can contribute when you have time, have your work get noticed, pick up the occasional perk, all under a pseudonym if necessary. Or you can can produce a lot of content and become a regular contributor—hopefully earning an income once we become financially solvent.

Becoming a writer is as easy as creating an account. Once you’ve done that, you can create a blog, contribute to the forums, add yourself to mailing lists, submit work to editors and a bunch of other things.

Hotbox Magazine’s writing flow involves two currencies: points and reputation. Points are earned by posting content on blogs, receiving Diggs or “Smokks” (The token used at Smokkr.com, our community news aggregator), submitting content to editors, taking and fulfilling story requests from editors, winning contests, the like. These can be used for a host of things and eventually (Once we reach a certain advertiser threshold) be cashed in. Some of the perks that points can be traded in for are: calendars, subscriptions, on-site advertising, disk space and more!


The second currency is reputation. When you contribute—whether it be through a blog, forum posts, writing stories or otherwise—community members are able to verify your material. This will give you reputation points. These are used by editors when deciding who will be given high-profile stories, as detailed below.

Our major sections—Current Affairs, Entertainment and Photo—each have their own respective editors. These people are responsible for organizing content and laying it out in the compiled electronic version of the magazine. To do this, they regularly send out story ideas to users on their mailing lists and request bids. What this means is that to take a story, you must respond to the editor with how much reputation you are willing to stake if you fall through with the story. If you accomplish it, you will be given an amount specified when the story is mailed out. This is to give contributors a reason to respect deadlines and also recognize the importance of particular members of the community. Some more important and high-profile stories will be given a minimum bid; this is to ensure that new writers don’t get stuck with an enormously difficult story critical to the layout of the magazine on their first assignment. The final decision, however, is always left up to the editor.

So come join us and kick some ass! Signing up and contributing is easy. For more information, check out the Help pages or check out the Contacts page to email individual editors.

       

Written by :

Janus Jones