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This FAQ was created in order to answer common questions from those applying to become an ICE writer. If you have any additional questions please direct them to the ICE Staff.
Q1. About how much would I be getting paid?
Pay is commission only and does NOT consist of a part-time salary or a hourly pay rate. ICE does not currently offer any salaried positions. Writers are self-directed and since pay is commission-based you will only receive as much work as put into the site.
We currently offer several forms of payment:
- profit sharing (based upon the traffic generated by your articles)
- we'll pay for advertising YOUR work, and we have a store to sell it in as well
- access to our promotions design team for authoring Flash web banners (normally costs other advertisers hundreds of dollars)
- ICE Staff Writers are able to set up their own Google AdSense account and have ads on you own blog page where any clicks will generate money JUST for you
Q2. When do we receive Profit Sharing?
We'll be quite frank that the going wisdom is that it takes about 3-5 years for a new website to become self-sustaining to the point that large scale advertising and salaried staff become affordable. So while "profit sharing" is currently negligible we intend on seeing it grow, with the goal of becoming profitable on a small scale within 6 months. As such, we highly recommend that you view your role as an ICE writer as a source of supplemental income, not as your primary job.
It's been the plan from the start to create multiple sources of income and not rely entirely on advertising, but that's a WIP. We'd partnered with PassAlong Networks to provide our digital music store (same company that did FYE, MTV, etc.). Unfortunately, they just went bankrupt and there's no similar replacement. We're currenting working on finding a distribution network for physical CD albums. We're also working on getting the game digital distribution system up. In addition, we also planning on selling merch like clothing, accessories, skateboards, Eden surfboards, and the like. In the short term financing is provided by the partners in Area81, Inc. and TGS, Inc. which covers the costs for marketing, partner promotions, hosting, fees, and everything else.
When Profit Sharing becomes active, at the end of each month the income from Digital Advertising will be calculated. Profit Sharing will ONLY occur when there is a net profit, which is determined by calculating the gross profit minus the cost of business for the month. The ICE Staff will provide a report at your request. To be clear, it is fully possible that in a given month there will be NO profit sharing IF there is NO profit.
We highly recommend setting up your own account for web advertising (like Google Adsense). This way, any clicks on ads on your own blog page will generate income straight to you!
Q3. How does Profit Sharing work?
We will then look at all the articles written that month (not including blog categories that have their own Google publisher ID). We will calculate the total number of "hits" or page views. Your payment will be a percentage based upon the number of hits corresponding to articles written by you.
In order to get paid please make certain to give any of the ICE Staff your address so we can send you a check.
Q4. What are the number of available positions?
Our goal is to have 10 to 20 committed bloggers at most. The goal is to cover a diverse number of topics, with each blog having its own unique focus. While there will be some overlap we'd prefer to not have too many blogs focused on exactly the same topic. In the future we may allow several authors to contribute to the same blog. We'd like to customize the web template of these blog sections and draw readers in based upon the individual blogs.
In addition to bloggers we require article writers. If you can only contribute a few articles every month or so that would be fine. There is not a quantity requirement for being a ICE author. We actually intend on maintaining a large amount of non-staff authors until we grow to the point that the site can sustain full-time salaried writers. People will be chosen for salaried positions based upon their availability and prior work with ICE.
Q5. What is the level of creative freedom given to the writers?
Writers are self-directed. If any ICE editor notices major spelling/grammar mistakes or formating errors (pics too big, etc.) they will edit someone else's work. Or sometimes a point is not exactly clear (or missing a word).
Keep in mind this is a Christian site. There are cases when an ICE editor may step in based upon content. For example, please do not start started calling all Democrats jackasses or Republicans something similar. I don't care if you want to criticize any political party but I do care when general insults start flying. There's a balance to this, of course. A fool is a fool and I'm not so politically correct that we cannot call what someone is. Personally, I prefer to follow Jesus' example and I reserve most of my rancor for hypocritical and self-righteous Christians that drive people away from the Kingdom. Sinners will sin of course and I'd rather show them the love of God and let Him work out their problems.
Q6. Can we write articles together? What if someone has already written on a subject I wanted to cover?
Sometimes we'll collaborate. For example, Frosty (Mack), Patrick, and the Alpha Jan have worked on articles together.
The key is to communicate on product reviews. For example, Frosty wants to an album review for his favorite metal band and he'll email everyone to let us know. In general, the rule will be that whoever claims a product first as "theirs" gets to write the review. But other writers can add comments to the primary article, stating their second opinions.
Q7. Does ICE have a standard product review format?
Yes, we do. Please view previous reviews to see examples. Also, please create a web link for any reviews or interviews.
Q8. What kind of content you are most interested in receiving from your writers?
We're looking for writers that can not only discuss entertainment, but also science, technology, politics, culture, and anything relevant to the Bible. That's including game development and novel writing itself. Patrick's blog is called Gamers Underground and while he's covered development in the past gaming in general is more his focus.
And if any blog does not fit into your normal category you can also put it into the ICE Core blogosphere category. ICE Core was created for this very reason.
Product reviews do not need to be our primary focus since two of our ACE network sites (CCGR and everydaygamers) already cover this aplenty. We share CCGR's game reviews with Cheryl's blessing. But when we review a game usually we don't use CCGR's formatting, since it's focused on grading games based upon content. That's not a bad thing but parental reviews is not really ICE's focus. Although if you want to use CCGR's formating and post it on both CCGR and ICE I'm sure Cheryl would be thankful!
Q9. I am viewing your site as a possible platform for getting my writings to the public and view that as my primary reason for interest.
We're hoping to get at least several writers interested in promoting their own novels or short stories. For example, the Alpha Jan is a published author, with his first work titled "Fated". If you want to web publish any works of fiction in a serial fashion we'd be happy to support you. We can create special front-page links and also generate web banner ads for our internet marketing campaign.
Q10. What is ICE's political affiliation?
ICE itself does not have one. Blogger X (Charles), Merry, and DJ NOS (Rafael) can be described as "right-leaning". Patrick and Frosty can be described as "centrists". The Alpha Jan, Andrew, Fudge and several others could be described as "left-leaning". These labels may be too simplistic and we'd suggest talking to people in order to understand their position thoroughly. Although we may disagree on many topics we work well together. We don't plan on making this a "political [insert label] only" site. Nor do we condone outright hateful bashing. Keep any criticisms at least somewhat constructive.
Q11. Does ICE contribute to Christian Charities?
Frosty and Patrick own XrucifiX, which contributes 10% of its earnings as a tithe. But ICE is a subsidiary of Area81, Inc., with XrucifiX as a limited partner.
Q12. What other Christian sites are out there?
You might want to check out gameace.org and christiandevs.com to communicate with fellow video game devs who are Christian. For general gaming there is everygamers.com, ccgr.org, faithfreaks.com, and many others.
Q13. Can I re-use some of my old writings?
Feel free to reprint any old good articles on ICE. We've dusted off some of our old writing ourselves. Just make certain that if you've published it anywhere else that you still retain the copyright and permission to re-print.
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