Last year I got the chance to write an article for Hackin9 magazine. It was a wonderful experience and I wanted to provide some insight to other cybersecurity enthusiasts as to how it went for me, a rookie in the world of writing articles.
First and foremost, I have to say thank you to the awesome people at the magazine. They were all amazing and above all, professional.
My journey started with me answering an email from the magazine requesting people who would like to write about their experience working with cybersecurity tools. I submitted some topics, but I guess the one that clicked with them was “Running Kali Linux on an M1 Mac”. I was kinda hoping for them to choose my article on “Which platform is the best for installing Kali Linux: (Barebones Metal, Virtualbox, VMWare, WSL, Hyper-V or Parallels)”, but I guess that was a bit too niche of a topic.
Once they approved the topic, I received some guidelines on how to format the article and it was off to the races.
I gotta say, writing for the first time for a magazine was both exhilarating and scary. Microsoft Word became my one and only app and I wrote pretty much non-stop for the next 2 weeks. Tip: keep good notes of your sources as everything needs to be referenced in the article. The number one request Hakin9 magazine had was to keep it clear and concise. Clear and concise is what I did. I turned in my Word document at the end of the 2 weeks and I guess I must have done something right. The reviewing staff enjoyed the article and the grammar team did not find any issues with the wording and sentence flow. Not bad for a first-timer. The article was finalized and I received a complimentary digital copy of the magazine a few weeks later. FYI: If you want a copy, you can get it here: https://hakin9.org/product/ethical-hacking-tools/
All in all, an amazing experience.
So if you are on the fence of contributing to your favorite cybersecurity magazine, please do not hesitate. I am sure you will have a positive experience, just like I did.