Many readers may not know this, but for the past few years, MacStories sponsorships were sold by a third party. The arrangement worked well, but for a variety of reasons, it makes sense to manage sponsorships internally now. So, starting today, MacStories.net sponsorships will be handled in-house by MacStories contributor John Voorhees.

As in the past, we will offer exclusive, week-long sponsorships that highlight a sponsor’s product in a sponsored post on MacStories.net. However, we have instituted a new two-tier sponsorship structure. Most of the features of previous MacStories sponsorships are now included in our Basic Sponsorship package. A second tier called the Plus Sponsorship incorporates additional features, including some not previously offered as part of any MacStories sponsorship.

The Basic Sponsorship package includes:

• A sponsored post at the beginning of the week published on MacStories’ homepage and to its RSS feed describing the sponsor’s product and including an image. The post copy can be provided by the sponsor or written by us if the sponsor prefers.
• A link to the sponsor’s website at the top of every page of MacStories.net, throughout the week.
• A thank-you tweet from the MacStories Twitter account sent at the beginning and end of the week.

The Plus Sponsorship package includes:

• A sponsored post like the Basic package, but with the option to add an embedded video in the post.
• The option to include a banner image and link at the top of every page of MacStories.net, throughout the week.
• Thank-you tweets from the MacStories, Club MacStories, MacStories Deals, and Federico sent at the beginning and end of the week.

If you are interested in sponsoring MacStories, please contact John Voorhees for rates and to check availability.

In connection with bringing sponsorship sales in-house, we have created a sponsorship policy for MacStories.net. Our readers’ trust is something we work hard to earn and maintain every day, so we feel we owe it to them and to our future sponsors to articulate how we will handle sponsorships.

The full policy and additional background are accessible from the ‘Advertise’ section of the site but, in summary, the policy is as follows:

• We only accept sponsorships for products that we are comfortable recommending to our readers.
• Product reviews are not for sale. A sponsorship of MacStories is not an agreement to review a product.
• The decision of whether to review a product is made separately from whether to accept a sponsorship.
• MacStories retains the final say over the content of sponsored posts, banner images, and any other content that appears on MacStories.net, its social media accounts, and its other publication channels.
• To minimize actual and perceived conflicts of interest, we will not accept sponsorships from app developers, hardware makers, or online services for two weeks following the launch of a major new product or update covered by a MacStories review.

We hope you appreciate that we take the trust of MacStories readers seriously and will continue to do our best to honor it with every editorial and business decision we make. If you ever have any questions or concerns about these policies, feel free to get in touch.