Step 1:
Have a read through a few issues of Custom PC magazine (you can read it for free). You will then have an idea of our style, the sort of content we print and our general focus.
Step 2:
Come up with an idea that you think would be a good fit. It should fit into one of the following categories:
Customisation feature – These features take the reader through the process of one aspect of building a custom PC. Your aim will be to explain both the technical theory of the area of customisation covered, while also providing practical examples and test results to back it all up. It could be a beginner’s guide to water cooling, a guide to airflow theory, an upgrade guide or even a whole PC build from start to finish. It may be something we’ve never even covered before – we’re open to new ideas, and we want to hear them from you.
Extreme customisation feature – These features go beyond the beginner-to-intermediate guides and into the realms of advanced PC tinkering. It could be a piece about a stunning scratch-built PC you’ve made, with a custom case and water-cooling with rigid tubing, for example. It could be a piece about overclocking with liquid nitrogen, or tweaking your EFI settings (beyond the usual multiplier and vcore settings) to win benchmarking competitions. If you’re a part of the extreme overclocking or modding scene, then we want to hear from you.
Analysis feature – These features explore all sorts of areas in depth, from explaining the inner workings of a CPU to dissecting the latest shader models and showing how they will affect future games. These features can also explore more off-field areas, such as thinking points, interviews and technology in general. If you think you can get some great interviews lined up, and you’ve got an idea for a thought-provoking, technology-focused feature, then we’d love to hear from you.
Guides – Have you done something really interesting with your PC hardware that you think you could fully explain in a step-by-step photography guide? Then we’re all ears! PC modding ideas are particularly interesting to us here.
Step 3:
Before starting on your article, drop us a line to see if we think it’s right for us. Send a few sentences describing the article to the editor: ben.hardwidge@raspberrypi.org. If we can see potential in the pitch, we’ll chat with you about fleshing out the idea, where we want to focus and other details. Please don’t send over pre-written features - we want every part of Custom PC to be original and lovingly hand-crafted.
From there, we can discuss the length of the article, the deadline, when it will be printed and, of course, payment.
