BDNE Policies
“Copyright, Submission, Advertising and Event Posting, Photography, Submission Guidelines, etc.”
CONTENT COPYRIGHT
BDNE is the copyright holder of electronic and print materials created by BDNE. BDNE holds the copyright to all content submitted by third parties until publication, whereupon copyright reverts to the authors. BDNE reserves the right to make third-party content available to readers in its archives. Materials will be marked with the copyright symbol and the year of publication: © 2016 Belly Dance New England or © 2016 BDNE
CONTENT SUBMISSION
BDNE is committed to sharing information and educating the belly dance community as a whole. Dancers are encouraged to share their knowledge and experience through articles and event reviews (“Sequins of Events”) for BDNE. Anyone interested in contributing should contact the editor of BDNE regarding opportunities. Articles as well as event and product reviews written for BDNE become the property of BDNE, although proper credit will be given to the contributor. The opinions expressed in an article are those of the contributor(s). BDNE reserves the right to not publish any article containing incorrect, libelous, or discriminatory information. BDNE also reserves the right to edit content for grammar and clarity. The final decision to publish is that of the editor of BDNE alone.
PHOTOGRAPHY
When photos are supplied by an individual, event organizer, or photographer, permission to use them is implied. It is up to the individual or event organizer to ensure that permission has been granted by the creator and the subjects, and that appropriate photo credits are provided to BDNE. BDNE is not liable for any photo subject or copyright infringement that occurs when the photo is provided by an outside source. Photographs appearing in BDNE are not available through BDNE for public usage outside of the BDNE publication as they are under copyright to the dancer, event promoter, or photographer.
ADVERTISING AND EVENT POSTING
BDNE encourages all performers, teachers, and studios to advertise on the website for a small fee, including an option to be listed in reference pages continuously as a resource for those seeking that information.
BDNE encourages event promoters of non-fundraiser events to advertise for a small fee on the website, as well as be listed in the Events calendar. Planners are encouraged to list events as soon as the date is set, no matter how far in advance: others often use this calendar as a way of planning what to go to and when to sponsor events of their own to avoid conflicts.
BDNE provides event listings at no cost for events that are fundraisers for a non-profit charity (generally a 501 3c organization). This does not apply to events that raise money for specific individuals or for dance studios; however, promoters for these events may pay an advertising fee to have these events listed and promoted on BDNE.
In an effort to support professionalism and respect among dancers, BDNE does not promote or list events for which dancers must pay to perform. It is the belief of the publisher of this publication that dancers who donate their performance to an event should not also be required to donate funds. If a dancer chooses to donate an item for raffle or auction or funds toward the cause, they must do so of their own choice. It should not be a deciding factor in their being allowed to perform at the event.
While venues such as nightclubs and restaurants who hire dancers are encouraged to advertise with BDNE, individual performances of dancers hired to perform at these venues will not be posted. It is the responsibility of the venue itself to advertise, not the individual dancer.
“Our Goal is to unite dancers across state lines…”
Kelvia (Owner, Financial Sponsor, and Artistic Director of the ‘New’ BDNE Network)
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
When you join the BDNE network, you are hiring a TEAM to help market your services with you. We will push your flyers and promote you and your events to partner with your own marketing efforts. Keep in mind the BDNE network can only work as hard as you do. You must ensure you are submitting us your marketing material in eye catching flyers/jpegs, with clear content, to ensure that your AD gets the desired amount of visibility. We have thousands of subscribers across New England!! We are currently are the LARGEST and LONGEST STANDING marketing platform New England wide!!
In order to take the most advantage of this resource we ask that you keep the following guidelines:
Teachers:
Please submit the following information to us the moment you sign up to ensure your listing goes LIVE promptly.
Your Dance Name
Your Website
Any current event flyers or class listing information you want posted. Remember that graphics make everything better!!
Send us a clear image of you for our teacher listing page.
Short bio for your teacher spotlight ad. (These spotlights are GOLD!! They have proven to drive the most traffic to instructor’s websites and generates the most buzz!)
Do NOT forget to set your calendars to update and resubmit your class listing or promo images every 6months or whenever there is a significant change to class offers.
Advertisers:
This is our ELITE service!! You can advertise AS OFTEN and as frequently as you wish! This is GREAT for those influential community centric artists who host events or workshops on a regular basis. As opposed to the Teacher listing, where you only get listed on the page and spotlighted on rotation, our Advertiser status get multiple spotlights per year, get published on our social media multiple times during the lifespan of their individual event, and get listed in multiple platforms.
To go LIVE we will need the same data as our Teachers. Just remember that this applies to your special events too!
DON’T FORGET TO SEND US YOUR FLYERS!!
Your Dance Name
Your Website
Any current event flyers or class listing information you want posted. Remember that graphics make everything better!!
Send us a clear image of you for our teacher listing page.
Short bio for your teacher spotlight ad. (These spotlights are GOLD!! They have proven to drive the most traffic to instructor’s websites and generates the most buzz!)
Do NOT forget to set your calendars to update and resubmit your class listing or promo images every 6months or whenever there is a significant change to class offers.
Authors:
We welcome and encourage contributions of articles, reviews, editorials, and column posts from all members of the New England belly dance community. The following are guidelines to help you get started.
Topics
We encourage you to discuss your ideas with us first, so that we help you hone your topic and make sure that there is no overlap with other work in progress. In general, for feature articles, your topic should have some tie-in with New England:
you are a New England-based dancer writing about something you know
you used to live here, live somewhere else now, and can offer a perspective on dance scenes elsewhere in the world;
you are writing about an issue, person, or event in the New England belly dance community.
You are also welcome to contribute content to our columns:
Articles – BDNE’s editorial space. A place for expressing opinions!
Community Event Review – event reviews submitted by anyone who attends and wishes to share their experiences.
One Teacher’s Opinion – topics on teaching belly dance
The Business of Belly Dance – topics on anything from payment for performance to running belly dance events, “Going Pro” Advice for the aspiring professional dancer.
Gateways to Understanding – topics on Middle-Eastern culture. Submissions do not have to be dance-related; in fact, we prefer topics on politics, popular culture, and other art forms. This is a good place for book reviews.
If you would like to write a review, such as one for an event, book, or CD, please see our Review guidelines.
Length
Feature articles run anywhere between 750 and 1000 words. However, our best advice to you is write what you want to say. We can always publish in two parts, if necessary. The point is not to write to a certain length, but to say what you wish to say.
Text formatting
Please single-space, and make sure your paragraphs are flush left. It would be a great help to us if you use only one space after a period.
File formats
Copy will be accepted online in email, text (.txt), Google docs, or Word (.doc) formats only.
Photos
Photos must be in .jpg format, with a resolution of 150 dpi.
Please provide photographer credits for the photos. You must have permission from the event producer or photo subjects to submit them for publication.
Bios
Please submit a brief bio with your article. Include contact information, such as an email address or Web site link.
Style and usage reference
BDNE TERMINOLOGY
Use Instead of belly dance, belly dancing bellydance, bellydancing Middle-Eastern Middle Eastern, Mid-East am, pm A.M., P.M., AM, PM noon 12:00 pm midnight 12:00 am raqs sharqi raks sharki Oriental dance Orientale dance beledi beledy, baladi karsilama karshilama chiftetelli Chiftitelli, tshiftetelli, chifte telli drop-in drop in, dropin Web (referring to the World Wide Web) web Internet internet taqsim taksim, taxim dumbek doumbek riq riqq qanun kanoun email e-mail
Usage
If you use an abbreviation, spell out the term the first time it is used in the article, with the abbreviation following in parentheses, like this:
American Tribal Style (ATS)
Use the serial comma in sentences that list multiple things or people. For example:
“Amy, Meg, Miriam, and Amina Delal comprise the staff.”
The serial comma in this case follows the name ‘Miriam.’
Do not use Latin abbreviations like i.e., e.g., or etc. Use the English terms instead – that is, for example, and so on.
Do not confuse it’s with its. The former is a conjunction of it is; the latter is a possessive. For example:
It’s going to be a nice day
The dog has mud on its paws.
Tone and voice
Write as if you were speaking. This sounds most natural and your article will sound like you.
Try to use the active voice; for example:
“It feels like this…”
is not as definitive as:
“I feel like this…”
Don’t make your sentences complicated, or they will be unwieldy and difficult to understand.
For example:
“With each rhythm presented was a hand-out page with plenty of note-taking space.”
This sentence was re-written for clarification like this:
“There was a handout – with plenty of space for notes – for each rhythm covered in the workshop.”
REVIEW GUIDELINES
We expect reviews to be fair and balanced. Think about the things you would want to know if you were attending an event in this same venue or sponsored by the same person. This may mean writing about an aspect of the event that did not go well; for example, the venue may have had a poor sound system, or the room was extremely cold. Most event producers are interested in learning how they can improve, and appreciate gettings feedback on their events.
Occasionally, some people may not like what you wrote, and may choose to voice their concern in a letter to the editor. This does not mean that you wrote a bad review. They are expressing your opinion, as you did.
The length of the review, in words, is not a hard limit. Generally, reviews are 750 – 1000 words. However, it is preferable that you write what you need to say, and we can work with you to edit, as needed.
We recommend that you submit the review within two weeks after the event.
We try, as much as possible, to obtain press passes to events. Should one not be available, or should want to cover an event for which a press pass is not usally given (such as a workshop), other funding options may be available. Please speak with the editor about this.
Event promoters often arrange for professional photographers to be at their event, and will provide us with photos, so there is no need for you to take photographs.
We’ll edit the review for clarity and grammar. We should be the only other person to see the review prior to publication. Please do not share the review with the event sponsor, or anyone related to the event, prior to publication. This is to avoid any undue influence.