Work with OtakuOshi as a writer, brand or event organiser
Do you live and breathe the Spanish-speaking otaku scene, whether you’re in Madrid, Mexico City or writing from Manchester? We’re after writers, journalists, photographers and creators who write in Spanish and want to tell its stories. Our blog runs reports on conventions, meet-ups, events, Japanese culture and cosplay communities, and every Spanish-language article that goes live gets paid. Brands, event organisers and cultural societies have their own ways to work with OtakuOshi as well.
Why work with OtakuOshi
We run a subscription platform where otaku creators and their fans meet, and our blog needs contributors who see the scene up close. The sort of person who queues for a con on the opening morning, knows the local artists by their handles and can explain what’s going on in the community with both insight and warmth.
Recycled copy and rewrites of someone else’s reporting won’t get far with us. What we publish is original, well researched and clearly yours. Maybe you never miss a convention, maybe you know every face in your local cosplay group, or maybe you track anime and manga releases obsessively in your corner of the world. Whichever it is, we’d love to see what you can do.
What contributors get in return
We see writing for OtakuOshi as a proper paid job. Your byline goes on every article we publish, and we push each one out across our channels.
US$25 for every article we run
Once an original article of 2,000 words or more clears editorial review and is published on the platform, we pay you 25 US dollars for it. The money is sent after the article is live.
Credit where it’s due
Articles appear under your real name or a pen name, alongside a short bio and a link back to your profile. The whole community gets to read your work, and it gives you something solid for your portfolio.
Promotion on our channels
We share every article on OtakuOshi’s social accounts and tune it for search engines, so it reaches a growing Spanish-speaking readership of otaku fans and creators.
The paid article programme
Writers, journalists, bloggers and content creators who write in Spanish can all apply, wherever they live. Topics range across anime, manga, cosplay and otaku culture, events and conventions, and the creative community at large. A background in the media isn’t required. Strong writing and real knowledge of your subject are.
For each published article that meets our quality and length standards, we pay US$25. Your text has to be original, meaning it hasn’t appeared in any other outlet, it has to reach 2,000 words or more, and it has to pass our editorial review before we accept it.
Subjects we’re keen on
We especially value articles about events in the flesh, local scenes and stories you couldn’t write without having been there. These areas top our list.
Cons and events
Reports from anime, manga and cosplay conventions across Spain and Latin America, for instance Japan Weekend, Manga Barcelona (the old Saló del Manga), La Mole in Mexico City or the comic con closest to you. Covered something further afield, like MCM Comic Con London at ExCeL or Hyper Japan at Olympia? Send that over too. Tell us what happened on the show floor, not just what was on the press release.
Meet-ups and gatherings
Cosplay meets, group photoshoots, artist get-togethers, fandom-specific meetings and any other occasion when the otaku community gathers face to face in your town or region.
Cosplay on your doorstep
Profiles of local cosplayers and groups, how the scene where you live has evolved, crafting workshops, competitions and the culture behind cosplay that the photos don’t show.
Inside the manga and anime business
Market trends, new Spanish-language releases, how manga sales are faring, licensing deals or small independent animation studios. Any industry subject works if you bring data and a perspective of your own.
Independent artists
Interviews and profiles of illustrators, mangaka, animators, musicians and digital creators from the Spanish-speaking otaku world. Newcomers and tiny scenes that nobody else bothers to cover are exactly our thing.
Japanese culture near you
What Japanese culture looks like once it leaves Japan. Restaurants, specialist shops, cultural associations, festivals and exchanges in Spanish-speaking countries, written up by someone who knows them well.
Standards every article must meet
The OtakuOshi blog only carries quality editorial work. That rules out generic filler, text produced by artificial intelligence, translations of articles from other outlets and anything that brings nothing new to the table. Each submission is reviewed by our editors before we say yes, against the same criteria as our publishing principles.
Here are the minimum requirements for an article to be considered.
A minimum of 2,000 words. No ceiling applies, though every paragraph should justify itself. A tight 2,500 words beats a bloated 5,000 every time.
Completely original work. If the article has already appeared in a magazine, on a blog, on social media or on any other platform, we can’t take it. The same goes for lightly reworked versions of existing texts.
Clean, readable prose. Expect us to check spelling and grammar, flow and structure, with a clear opening, middle and ending. Careless writing or repeated mistakes will lead to a rejection.
Facts you can back up. Figures, quotes and specific claims must be checkable and correctly credited. Made-up statistics and phantom sources are out.
Images you own or are cleared to use. Any photos or artwork submitted with the article need to be your own or used with permission. Pictures grabbed from the web without consent won’t be accepted.
Zero AI-written content. You need to write every word yourself. Drafting with AI tools, even for a single section, leads to instant rejection and a permanent exit from the programme.
From pitch to payment
Here’s how an article moves through the programme, one stage at a time.
Pitch your idea
Use the contact page and pick the partnerships option. A few lines about yourself, the subject, a rough outline and links to earlier work if you have any are all we need. Hold on to the full draft for now.
We approve the topic
The editors read your pitch and let you know if it fits what we publish. When it does, you’ll receive specific guidelines, our suggested angle and an approximate deadline.
Write and submit
Write the whole article in line with the guidelines and quality standards we agreed. Send it over in an editable file (Google Docs, Word or Markdown), plus any images that go with it.
Editorial review
We go through the substance, the writing, the structure, the facts and the images. Where changes are needed, we spell them out so you can make them. If the article doesn’t reach the standard we ask for, we turn it down and give you our reasons.
Your article goes live
After sign-off, the article is published on the OtakuOshi blog with your name, bio and profile link. We post it on the platform’s social media, and it stays online for good.
You get paid
Once it’s published, we send your US$25 using whichever method we settled on beforehand, be it bank transfer, PayPal or another option available where you live. You’ll receive it within 30 days of the publication date at the latest.
Partnerships with brands, events and creators
The article programme is only one route in. We’re also happy to team up with individuals, companies and organisations who care about otaku culture and Japanese creativity as much as we do.
Brands and companies. Is your business connected to anime, manga, cosplay, illustration or Japanese games? We can talk about sponsored content, a presence at events, joint campaigns or product placement, provided the brand offers the community something worthwhile. Our brand page explains our identity, and the press office can send logo files for a campaign.
Conventions and events. Organising a convention, festival, meet-up or other otaku event in a Spanish-speaking country? We can offer editorial coverage, promotion on our channels or a presence on the day. Organisers who can sort out press passes for our contributors are especially welcome.
Video makers, podcasters and streamers. If you cover otaku culture in Spanish, we’re open to cross-promotion, from interviews and shout-outs to joint projects and audience swaps. If, on the other hand, you want to sell your own work to fans, set up a creator profile instead.
Cultural bodies. Japanese culture societies, language schools, cultural centres and similar organisations that promote Japanese culture in Spanish-speaking countries can contact us to work out joint projects and help spread the word for each other.
Questions about writing and partnerships
What people ask us most often about the article programme and the other ways to work with OtakuOshi.
Your article must have an otaku or Japanese culture angle, such as cosplay, anime, manga, illustration, events or the creative scene around them. Inside those limits you have plenty of freedom. The subjects listed above (cons, meet-ups, local scenes, creator profiles) come first, but we’ll read any pitch that suits our editorial line.
Not at all. Neither media experience nor a published portfolio is required. We care about good writing, knowledge of the subject and an article that meets the quality bar. Still, samples of earlier work help us make up our minds about your pitch more quickly.
You can. A completed article can come straight to us, and we’ll judge it exactly as submitted. If it meets our requirements on quality, subject and length, we’ll take it on, publish it and pay for it. Otherwise we’ll tell you why and say whether a rewrite is worth trying.
We don’t set a cap per contributor, although quality always matters more to us than volume. As long as each article clears the bar, several a month is fine. In practice, most contributors end up with between one and four a month.
Sorry, no. When you accept publication and payment, you hand OtakuOshi exclusive publishing rights, so the article lives only on our platform. Feel free to talk about it and link to it from your blog or socials, but the text itself mustn’t be reproduced anywhere else, in full or in part.
You’ll get a detailed explanation. A few rejections can’t be reversed, for instance when the subject is off-brief, the text was written by AI or something has been plagiarised. Other times we’ll point out what needs fixing so we can take a second look. We don’t pay for rejected articles.
For now the programme only publishes articles written wholly in Spanish, regardless of where the author is based. Reporting from a country where Spanish isn’t spoken, say a con in Japan, Brazil or here in the UK, is fine, and you can keep local terms, but the article itself has to be in Spanish.
Head to the contact page and select the partnerships option. Let us know who you are (a brand, an event or an organisation), what sort of partnership you’re picturing and any details that help us weigh it up, like dates, venue or the audience you expect. Every proposal gets an answer within 7 working days at most. Journalists after background on the platform will find it in our press office.
Fancy working with OtakuOshi?
Send us an article pitch, a partnership idea or simply a question. We want people who know the otaku scene from the inside, and every proposal gets a reply.