Insanitek

Table of Contents

• • Insanitek’s Policies
    • Transparency Policy
    • Copyright Policy
    • Affiliate Policy
    • Broken Link Policy
    • Backlink Beggars Policy
  • Giveaways
  • Guest Posts

• • Current Audience
  • Guest Post Rules
  • Not Your Average Repayment Policy

Book Giveaway FAQ

• • What’s In It For You
  • Rules of Engagement
  • Getting Success Here

Insanitek’s Policies

Many people ask us what our policies are regarding various things at Insanitek. In this list, you’ll be able to discover what we do with information, how we distribute information, and even our affiliate policies. More importantly, you’ll also find information about the way we do things at Insanitek and why. Hopefully this will give you a little insight into our company and how we view the world should be.

Transparency Policy

Insanitek is built upon a relationship of trust. This trust is what enables us to give each other space to work, create, and invent. It gives us the freedom to truly push the bounds and do what we do best. This doesn’t mean, however, that we can be irresponsible. Grace, and the rest of the Insanitekians, take great pride in being responsible on top of being creative and pushing boundaries. To honour that, we put together a transparency report, which will appear on Ink at the end of every month. (Reports started in Oct. 2015 when Insanitek became fiscally viable for the long-term instead of just a fancy dream.)

What we are willing to share:

What we are not willing to share:

Basically, we won’t be posting anything that could royally screw over our clients. That’s just not how we play the game.

Copyright Policy

While we believe in open source, open access, and generally open communication, all rights for works found on Insanitek belong to the respective individual. That means that each article belongs to the author that wrote it, each image belongs to the photographer that took it. If creator of the piece or image decides that they want to preserve all of their rights, they have the option to do so.

That being said, all images from Insanitek, unless otherwise noted, come from websites that allow free use of their images under a public domain or Creative Commons 0, which allows free, unattributed use. Others come from Shutterstock, iStock, or are by professional photographers we know that have allowed the use of their images. These will be attributed.

When using a written piece from Insanitek, please attribute the author and link back to their piece here on Insanitek. When using one of the images you see here, take care to follow the copyright rules set forth by the companies that originally provided the image. That means if you see an attribution to Shutterstock or iStock, it is required that you purchase your own license. If you see that we have linked it back to somewhere with a “found at” note, you may link to the original source or us. If the image has no attribution, assume it is probably safe to use, but use a Google Image Search anyway just in case one slipped through our editor’s iron grip.

Aside: If you are seeking a link back in our posts, you must contact the author’s directly. The authors own the intellectual property (IP), and thus we do not change their posts. In general, we will not add links that are irrelevant, require rewriting of the piece, or are frivolous. Just because you emailed our team asking for a link in exchange for some social media mention does not mean we’d be willing to rewrite a piece to include your piece and keep it up to our scientific standard and readability.

Infographics

Copyright for Infographics go to the original authors of the academic paper, the author of the infographic text, and the graphic designers that worked on it. This information is always printed on the graphic itself and has the Insanitek logo on it. Attribution in the text body of your piece is appreciated, but not necessary as long as you do not remove this information from the graphic.

Affiliate Link Policy

We do use affiliate links scattered throughout our publication. You will likely see them leading to Amazon where we get a few pennies for linking to the product we mention in Amazon, a specific software or service that we use, or other such things.

We make this promise to you, though: We will never link to anything we have not actually tried. If it’s a book, then someone has actually read it. If it’s a product, then someone has actually used it. If it’s a service, then it’s something we actively use and recommend to make your life easier. Any review attached to such is the author’s personal thoughts and assessment, for good for ill.

Broken Link Policy

We face a conundrum here. A good site in the eyes of the algorithms want clean, unblemished pages. So, what are we do to when a source we used as a citation inexplicably removes their page? We are left with a broken link, which means finding our site and information therein is greatly diminished. However, our values are to keep things open and honest. Thus, we came up with a somewhat unclean way to deal with the issue. We disable the hyperlink while leaving the text to the source information in the citation as evidence. We believe that any knowledge can be useful, including the fact that a source has deleted or moved their information.

We do not know why the sources moved or deleted their pages. They do not indicate on 404 page anything, thus we leave it up to you to make your own conclusions with the knowledge at your disposal.

At the beginning of posts that this has occurred, you’ll see an editor’s note stating that their were broken links that were removed. Transparency, openness, and honesty right up at the front so you can choose to use the information in the post as you will. Use your brain, use logic, and use what knowledge you can.

There are, however, broken links we have chosen to leave in place regardless of how it mucks about with our SEO. These are error 451 codes, which are working and up, but unavailable due to legal reasons. We will leave an editor’s note next to the in-tact hyperlink stating that this leads to an error 451 so you don’t waste your time unless you really want to go down a rabbit hole on your own.

We check for these monthly, so you will occasionally see a page with a broken link that we haven’t gotten to yet. If you do, please note the policy above, and if you want to, send us a message at hello[at]insanitek[dot]net.

Backlink Beggars Policy

Every week, sometimes daily, we get cold emailed begging us to add links to our articles by some rando. We do not change the author’s words once the post as been edited and published. We may add editors notes, noting broken links or a more up to date post, but we will not edit the original post as courtesy to the author. This is because these posts are the intellectual property of the author. If backlink beggars want to have their URL added, this is up to the sole discretion of the post author as they would have to rewrite the post to include proper citations.

So, how to get us to backlink AKA cite you? We suggest you try to make friends with and engage with our current writers to get your pieces seen and backlinked, which are called citations here, through our researched articles. If your posts are factual and well-cited, they just might have a chance of being cited.

Giveaways

The giveaway on Insanitek is slightly less straightforward. We don’t advertise it very much, so competition is low, especially if you don’t follow the company and fill out a form. There are two ways to fill out the submission form: 1.) write your name and email on a slip of scrap paper and deposit it in the “magic hat” in the office or 2.) fill out the submission form online. Our PR team will take the submissions as they come in and write the names and emails on a scrap of paper and put it in the magic hat as well. When the day of the drawing comes, which is always the second to the last Friday of the month someone from either the board or upper management (who are excluded from the entries) shakes the hat up, reaches in, and pulls a name at random. This is the winner.

And, in case you were curious, all those other scraps get put into the slurry that we use to make and use recycled paper in house or used as kindling for the lounge’s fireplace in the winter.

Guest Posts

We love guests on Insanitek — you all have shiny stories we’d love to hear and share. We especially love the sharing part. What we do for guest posters that are a good fit is make sure they have a post with a special box with your bio and link to your platform or offer. We don’t stop there, though. We like to share on social media often. Check out the points below, and see if we’re a good fit for you. Then, pitch us with what you think would make a great article for our audience (which hopefully soon will overlap with yours).

Current Audience

We get anywhere between 50 to 300 visitors a day, depending on the articles recently published, promotions going on, and the phase of the moon. Our current audience is pretty diverse, and we like it that way. But here are a few trends you can find in common:

• • • Science geeks with a large variety of interests — everything from reading to video games to outdoor activities to board games.
    • High school through adult with our highest demographic being in the 25 – 40 range.
    • About a 50/50 split males and females across all ages.
    • Mostly from North America, Europe, and the Middle East, but every country has lit up on our map over and over again.
    • Fav posts tend to be informational and give at least one actionable or have are projects they can do. (Hint: Don’t make it a marketing post, otherwise the audience won’t even want to read it.)

Who We Do NOT Serve

We should not have to state this, but we do not support people that put reason, logic, and the love of science second to identity politics and dogma. We will also not publish any pieces that support this sort of mentality. Facts from any facet and worldview are freely discussed here. We encourage comments from multiple points of view and levels of understanding. 

If you put your self-identity and dogma as forefront in your mind, this is not the place for you.

Guest Post Rules

Well, these rules are the same as the rules that our freelancers follow.

• • • Posts must have citations for facts and figures. Our audience likes to see that things are fact checked and backed up with evidence. Plus, it’s good for SEO.
    • Posts must be original, not a cross post from another platform.
    • Posts may link back to your site, but they must be relevant to the piece.
    • Posts must contain at least one picture in the featured image section. A second picture in the body is preferable, but not necessary to catch attention, just to keep it.
    • All images must give source as necessary.
    • Tone should be conversational and chill. We don’t hold to formality here at all. Cursing is OK where applicable.

Whew! That wasn’t too bad, was it? We’ve found that giving citations and sources makes the posts more interesting, trustworthy, and reliable. It also helps the search engines decide we are worthy of top place in searches. That’s why those three points are non-negotiable. But, as a guest poster, we’re sure you want attention on your own site, so here’s what we’d like to see as well.

• • • A link or within your article that leads back to a related topic or further information on your site.
    • A bio with a link back to your site or landing page.

Not Your Average Repayment Policy

We understand that a lot of places will share your post on social media and expect you to do most of the heavy lifting. And, while we’d greatly appreciate any and all shares of the article, we do most of the heavy lifting by:

• • • Sharing the post immediately to our social media feeds
    • Sharing the post over the next couple of weeks to social media in case it got missed the first time.
    • Use the piece as a citable source when helping others in forums or social media groups.
    • Make a social media graphic of it and share it on Pinterest and Instagram.
    • Send people to you if they are looking for more general information in your area of expertise.

Oh, and if you don’t mind, we would send any our our journalists in training to you for a quote for their articles.

Ready to pitch your idea yet? Do a quick search on our site to make sure your idea hasn’t been taken, then send your pitches with title, post ideas, and at least one relevant citation to Alesi at PR @insanitek {dot} net.

Book Giveaway FAQ

Who doesn’t love a good book? Seriously, they must be monsters if they don’t enjoy some sort of literacy vice. After all, comics are loved the world over by all ages, and that’s just the gateway drug for most of us. That’s why we decided to do a book giveaway here on Insanitek: because books are amazing, and authors deserve a good #signalboost.

What’s In It For You

Our giveaways are more about the author and their books than about us. That’s why you get the following in exchange for two ebooks:

An honest book review posted on Insanitek and spread through our social media channels to begin generating buzz.
A secondary review on the reader’s social media of choice, whether that is in a forum, Goodreads, or Amazon is completely up to them.
An interview with the reader to go a little deeper into the world, story, and other little bits that will help sell the book to our audience. This interview is posted on our site as well, then spread through our social media channels to increase the buzz.
Finally, the giveaway is powered by Gleam.io which gives people tickets for activities. We use this feature to drive traffic to your site, social media channels, and more.

So far with this method we’ve managed to increase interest in the author’s sites and books. Ashley Capes, our test pilot, saw an uptick in traffic and a few sales of his books during the course of the giveaway.

Rules of Engagement

Well, you’re still reading. That means you’re interested in getting your book seen among the science community. Here’s how it works:

1. You fill out this survey and answer the questions that tell us a little about your book. If it looks like something our audience would appreciate, then we move forward to offering it to readers in our community.
2. A reader, who is a member of Insanitek, will contact you. They will introduce themselves, mention this giveaway opportunity, and ask you for a copy of the e-book to read and review.
3. The reader will read it, review it, and come up with some questions to ask you along the way for the interview.
4. The reader will set up an interview with you. This interview will be conducted in a way that is comfortable for both of you, so don’t fret too much. All questions will try to add to the story and book review while generating more interest for our community.
5. The reader will work with both you and the PR department to set up the Gleam.io giveaway.
6. The giveaway runs for 2 weeks. During this time, the participants do various things to get points to win the book.
7. At the end of the giveaway, we look at the winner and send you their contact information to get their free copy of the book.
8. If the book is one of those amazing books that we think the audience would like to get a physical copy of, we will buy the physical copy and pay for shipping. All we ask is that you sign it for them. 🙂

Getting Success Here

Before you submit your book for our team, you may want to know how to make this truly worth your while. I know I would be. Here are a few hints for you.