Submit Tutorials, Tips, Articles, or Other Content

Sections: Jump to any Section of this page quickly by following a link below:

1. Publishing on Mobiletuts+
2. Written Tutorials
3. Video (Screencast) Tutorials
4. Articles
5. Quick Tips
6. Premium Content
7. Plagiarism and Crediting Sources
8. Mobiletuts+ Author/Artist Agreement

Submitting Content to Mobiletuts+

Prior to submitting content we recommend that you read the entire instructions on this page. Be sure to review the sections on Plagiarism and Crediting Sources, as well as, Mobiletuts+ Author/Artist Agreement. Also, review examples of prior content published on our site. Search for the topic you’re writing on to see how your idea would fit on Mobiletuts+, and find out if it’s something we have already covered. Of course we’re looking for new ideas, workflows, and techniques.

We publish multiple content types on Mobiletuts+, such as: Written Tutorials, Video (Screencast) Tutorials, Quick Tips, Articles, and Premium Content. Each content type has submission instructions, be sure to read the relevant sections thoroughly.

Publishing on Mobiletuts+

Mobiletuts+ is a unique community of mobile developers dedicated to learning. If you have some helpful knowledge you would like to share, then we’d like to talk with you.

Working With You

We have a strong belief at Tuts+ that everyone knows something worth teaching to others. We’d love to hear your creative content ideas and look forward to potentially working with you.

Payment

Want to submit a tutorial or other content to Mobiletuts+? We only accept content that matches the site’s writing and content standards. If your content is provisionally accepted, we’ll pay an agreed USD rate per item published (make an offer!), and you’ll get to help your fellow mobile dev aficionados! You must have a PayPal or Moneybookers account for us to pay you. This fee will be paid within the first week of every new month, following publication. Envato and Mobiletuts+ reserve the right to cancel the publication of your tutorial at any point prior to publication. While it is rare for this to happen after a concept has been provisionally approved, it can occur, primarily when the content submitted does not meet our publication standards or is found to have been plagiarized or unoriginal material. Bottom line: Mobiletuts+ and Envato will only pay for original material that we actually publish on the site.

Profile

Contributing to online publications is a great way to raise your profile online. When we publish your content, your author profile will be listed with the content. When submitting your final content please include a short paragraph for your profile, along with your email and website addresses.

What to Teach?

Mobiletuts+ is a learning community of mobile developers for a variety of platforms. We primarily focus on iOS SDK, Android SDK/NDK, HTML5/CSS/JavaScript for mobile devices (including SenchaTouch and jQuery Mobile), and mobile UI/UX design. However, we also accept content on the Corona SDK, the Titanium SDK, PhoneGap, the Windows Phone 7 SDK, webOS, and any other content domain that you believe to be of interest to a sizable number of your fellow mobile developers. In essence: if you’re excited about a particular topic in the mobile development world, there’s a good chance that we will be too!

Submission Instructions

Prior to submitting content we recommend that you read the entire instructions on this page. Be sure to review the sections on Plagiarism and Crediting Sources, as well as the Mobiletuts+ Author/Artist Agreement. Also, review examples of prior content published on our site. Search for the topic you’re writing on to see how your idea would fit on Mobiletuts+, and find out if it’s something we have already covered. We’re always looking for new ideas, workflows, and techniques.

The investment of a few minutes in carefully reading this page could save you much more time later on!

We publish multiple content types on Mobiletuts+, such as: Written Tutorials, Video (Screencast) Tutorials, Quick Tips, Articles, and Premium Content (coming soon). Each content type has submission instructions. Be sure to read the relevant sections thoroughly.

Your Content Must Fulfill the Following Criteria

1. You must send in your already completed content for us to review for acceptance. Please note that not every tutorial/article submitted will be accepted. We recommend you pitch your concept to get feedback from us, prior to submitting the full content.
2. Your content must be your original work and must not published elsewhere. Content paid for by Mobiletuts+ must be exclusive to Mobiletuts+.
3. You will need to format your content as per the format described in the corresponding content type section below.
4. You must have a PayPal or Moneybookers account for us to pay you, this fee will be paid within the first week of the month after your content was published. For example, if you publish a full-length tutorial in January, you will receive payment the first week of February provided that you submit your invoice on time.
5. Your content may be edited prior to publishing. In rare cases it may be substantially edited, but in general the Mobiletuts+ editor should be able to complete all edits to your content within about 30 – 60 minutes in order for it to be considered publishable.

Written Tutorials

These guidelines are for long form written tutorials. We prefer more complete, practical, and extensive tutorials, placed in the context of professional workflows with a useful and interesting final product.

How to Format Your Tutorial for Submission

Your tutorial must come with:

• A 200 x 200px preview image, ideally showing the final result of your tutorial (no text).
• An HTML file with the tutorial written out. The HTML file should be written in the same way that tutorials on the site are, that is in a set of “Steps” with images embedded where appropriate. Additionally, you should have a paragraph at the beginning giving an introduction to the tutorial.
• We use the Syntax Highlighter Evolved plugin for formatting code within tutorials. This essentially amounts to encapsulating code in brackets, like so: [languageName] code [/languageName]. Refer to the official site for documentation and the WordPress supported languages page if necessary.
• Images in the tutorial should be no more than 600px wide. The only exception is for when the tutorial has a final product that needs to be large (e.g. a wallpaper).
• When packaging your tutorial, place the source file and all images in the same folder as the HTML before sending.
• If you’ve used images in your source material, then please read the section on Photography and Source Images in the Plagiarism and Crediting Sources section below.

Video (Screencast) Tutorials

These are long form video screencasts tutorials. The benefit of this format is one can see exactly what the developer is doing. We prefer more complete, practical, and extensive tutorials, placed in the context of professional workflows with a high quality final outcome. Video tutorials should be well thought out, with clarity of voice, and show practical working methods.

We’re looking for full unique video tutorials. Unless you will be adding a clever twist or additional information, we’re not looking for people to remake any of the written tutorials on the site. We are only looking for unique video tutorials.

How to Format Your Video Tutorial for Submission

Please review the suggestions in the Written Tutorials section, as many of the same issues apply to video tutorials. Also, ensure that you adhere to the following rules when recording and submitting your video tutorial:

1. Video length must be 10 minutes or more.
2. Introduce yourself at the beginning of the tutorial and say you are making this tutorial exclusively for Mobiletuts+.
3. Submit an MP4 format of the final video.
4. Final video must be in High Definition (1280×720 (16:9) or 960×720 (4:3) for 720p).
5. You must include a description of your tutorial and a 200×200 pixel preview image.
6. If the video file is 100mb or more, then break it up into more than one video. Each part cannot be more than 100mb.
7. Audio quality must be good and narration must be clear and well thought-out.

Articles

We do occasionally publish content such as interviews, roundups on resources, and inspirational posts. As we only publish a limited amount of tutorials like this, it will be more difficult for you to get one of them approved, so be sure your content stands out!

In addition to the more general content described above, there are more practical article content types that we are always interested in hearing about. These include: articles that explain techniques, those that cover development theory and tools for mobile development, and case studies of high end or cutting-edge projects.

How to Format Your Articles for Submission

Ensure that you adhere to the following guidelines before submitting your article:

1. An HTML file with the article written out. The article should have multiple headings, major headings get h2 tags, and your welcome to use h3 and h4 tags as needed. Additionally you should have a paragraph at the beginning giving an introduction. Try to also include a well thought out conclusion.
2. Code is formatted with Syntax Highlighter Evolved plugin as described under the “Written Tutorials” section above.
3. Include a 200x200px relevant preview image.
4. Images in the tutorial should be no more than 600px wide and please follow the guidelines in our Plagiarism and Crediting Sources section. Also, you’re encouraged to use examples from your own work to illustrate your points when relevant.
5. When packaging your tutorial place all the images in the same folder as the HTML before sending.
6. While some topics may require more length, aiming for 800 to 1200 words is a good range for article size.

Quick Tips

Quick tips are 3-5 minute screencasts, short articles, or short 6-10 step tutorials on how to do something simple, quick, but useful. There are lots of little tips, tricks and techniques that are too small for a long format tutorial, but would still be useful and beneficial to the design community.

We post numerous quick tips, and pay $50 USD as the base rate for these.

Quick Tip: Short Written Tutorials

See our Written Tutorials section for information on putting together a written tutorial. Quick Tip tutorials are similar, except these are shorter and more focused.

Quick Tip: Screencast/Videos

See our Video (Screencast) Tutorials section for information on putting together a video/screencast tutorial. Quick Tip screencasts are similar, except these are shorter and more focused (3-5 minutes).

Quick Tip: Articles

See our Articles section for information on putting together written articles. Quick Tip articles are similar, except these are shorter and more focused (around 500 words).

Plagiarism and Crediting Sources

There are a few issues to we wary of when writing tutorials and putting together content.

Credit All Sources and Use Common Sense

Always credit your sources. When you credit your sources, it’s clear that you aren’t trying to hide something. For tutorial submissions it also lets our editors check that the tutorial is acceptable.

Use common sense and Err to the side of caution. There are no hard and fast rules about copyright. Beware of “rules” like ‘copying 40% is OK’, there’s no such thing. And remember that even aside from exact words or images, it can be the idea or principle. If you think something might not be OK, then trust your gut and don’t do it. Plagiarized tutorials aren’t paid for and we *always* catch plagiarism – some of our millions of readers will always let us know.

If your content is proven to be plagiarized in whole or in part you will not be paid for the plagiarized work and will not be able to work with us again in the future. Don’t risk it!

Photography and Source Images

Some tutorials make use of photos. There are a few things you need to know in this regard:

• DO NOT use images from Google Image search or simply taken from a website
• DO NOT use images from Flickr UNLESS they have a Creative Commons License for Commercial Use. In this case you must provide an attribution link back to the Flickr page you found the image on. Note you can find CC Commercial images on Flickr using their Advanced Search feature.
• DO use images you photographed yourself
• DO use images from free stock sites like SXC.hu and StockVault.net, BUT make sure you check the agreement for use in files for distribution. Sometimes you need to ask permission from the photographer. We need this because if the image is included in the sample file, we can’t distribute it unless you have permission.
• IF YOU USE images from a stock site like iStockPhoto, Dreamstime, or other THEN you are free to use the images in your screenshots, but in the source files you need to use a watermark over the image as they do in the previews on their sites. In other words you can purchase a stock image to use, but in the sample file you can’t be distributing the whole image (because the photographer isn’t receiving a royalty from the sale of files). This tutorial shows you how to watermark an image: Watermarking a Psd File for a Tutorial – Screencast

Please include links to the source of any images you have used in your tutorial wherever it has been used. If you do not include your image sources your tutorial will not be accepted, because we need to verify that the file is OK.

Thank you for taking the time to make sure the photos are OK, it helps protect the site, the photographer and yourself!

Mobiletuts+ Author/Artist Agreement

If Your Tutorial or Content is Accepted

• The author can use tutorial/content graphics in any commercial or non-commercial work, except in an online tutorial, and source files and artwork cannot be resold or redistributed elsewhere.
• You grant a license to readers to use the knowledge and demonstrated effects shown in the tutorial/content in their own projects without reference to yourself, Envato, Tuts+, or this site. They may not reproduce the tutorial itself, but they can use the techniques you teach.
• You grant a license to Envato to be the exclusive publisher of the tutorial/content online. You may republish extracts online – for example on your own site – however the tutorial in its entirety should not appear elsewhere. You may also republish the tutorial offline in any way you wish – e.g. sell it to a magazine, submit it to a book. However, source files and artwork may not be redistributed elsewhere.
• You consent to the full tutorial, content, extracts, samples or examples from it appearing in other Envato sites, products, and services.