by Ralph Heymsfeld
28th of July 2009

Stamporama is always looking for new articles to publish on our website.  Sharing your philatelic knowledge and experience with others is a great gift that you can give your fellow members, and it is also a great way to expand your own enjoyment of the hobby.

We are interested in articles covering the entire spectrum of philately from basic beginner information to advanced research projects.  While many of our contributors are seasoned philatelic authors and exhibitors, you should rest assured that we are truly interested in working with all comers.  Stamp collecting is a journey of discovery, and at every stop along the way is an opportunity to share your unique perspectives and developing interests.   

Potential articles can be found in virtually any ideas you have about collecting, or any experiences you may have had in pursuit of the hobby.  If you have a favorite topical area  - ships, animals, inventors - you could write about why the topic appeals to you, including some interesting facts about that topic and how stamps help tell the story.  If you add an interesting item to your collection and it stimulates you to do some research, you could tell the story of finding your item and what you have learned.  If you notice a discussion on our forum that is in your area of interest, you could use the questions asked and the answers given to help frame an article - you know people will be interested because they are already talking about it!

Stamporama has a wonderful tool for creating your article called the "Articles Workshop."  You access the workshop by logging in at the members area and then selecting the workshop from among the choices:

 Finding the Articles Workshop

The Articles Workshop provides a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment for creating your article.  It works very much like a word processor and you don't need to know anything about writing web pages to use it.  The editor makes it very easy to do some basic things like make a heading, insert a picture, or build a table.

The Workshop has an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor -
if you've ever used a word processor you should feel right at home.

It is important to note that this tool has been established to help you submit your articles and express your creativity.  If you don't want to use the editor, we still very much want to hear from you and publish your articles!

Pictures are not a requirement, but they sure are a great way to dress up an article.  If you have a scanner but you're having trouble using it, there is an excellent FAQ on making good scans in our FAQs area.

While we do not have a lot of rules for the content of your article, there are some basic common sense legal and ethical issues.  Your article should be your own original work that does not infringe on anyone else’s copyrights.  It's OK if your article has appeared somewhere else, but you must still own the rights to publish it with us.

We do reserve the right to edit your article for grammar or style, and we will not knowingly publish factual errors.  If we do make any changes, you will have an opportunity to review them before we publish.

I am currently the volunteer articles coordinator at Stamporama.  You can contact me by the Stamporama messaging system with my user name "heyralph" or you can reach me outside the system by e-mail: Ralph Heymsfeld (heyralph@comcast.net).  You should feel free to contact me with any questions about the process.  You are also encouraged to contact me with rough drafts and article ideas.  Remember, if you are interested in writing about stamp collecting, we are interested in helping you be successful!