Okay, so a couple of days ago @davidjsand created the redditwriters hashtag, and man, what a genius idea! My twitter feed has never been so alive with activity. It’s so awesome to see so many people connecting. I really hope it continues.
I mentioned that maybe we should do a collection of #redditwriters short stories and the idea gained traction quite quickly. Now here I am looking at the very real possibility of managing a collection from you guys. It’s quite an exciting and scary prospect.
Whilst I am excited, I am also really busy with work/life and my own writing projects. So, if it is going to happen I am going to need some help from you guys. Also, I have never managed a project on this type of scale before.
Submission rules
So, this is how I am proposing it should work:
Initially, let’s get this one published on an e-platform. I only know Amazon’s platform, so we can go with that. If anyone has any other suggestions for a different platform, let me know, and be aware that I will need help getting it on there!
No specified genre or theme. You guys wanted to submit your own stuff and I am down with that idea. So, for it to make any kind of sense we will order it by genre. Thanks @ADHamilton91 for the idea, I think it’s a great one.
However, to make this feasible given the amount of people who have shown interest, we need to limit word count to 1500 words. Limited to a maximum of two submissions.
So, when you submit, it would be super useful if you could include the following information:
- Reddit/Twitter handle
- Name (if you want to submit it)
- Name of the piece
- Genre
- Word count
- Are you happy to have your Twitter handle published?
- Are you happy to have your name published?
Try and submit your work according to the Chicago style guide if possible. If not just remember to
- double space,
- Indent after first line,
- size 12 font,
- Calibri or Arial.
Please note that all work submitted in Comic Sans will be sacrificed to the demon, Eligos, and your soul will be forfeit.
If you want to submit more than one piece for different genres, tell me your preference, but remember that we need to balance the genres as evenly as possible.
Send your submissions to the newly created redditwriters2017@gmail.com
Deadline
Let’s go for a submissions deadline of 17 September 2017. That will give everyone the chance to get something together. If we then aim for an early November release date.
Editing/quality control
No pressure, but submit your best effort and be open to suggestions and edits! I’d love for this to go somewhere and I want you to be happy with what is published. I am happy to edit as long as you are happy to read suggestions from me/anyone else and make changes. It should be a collaborative effort.
I am proposing that each genre has a primary editor, (volunteers please!) who will read through the submission, makes some suggestions/edits/ formats and liaises with the author, and I will manage final edits/ style. I am happy to manage the Sci-Fi genre! Thanks @pubby88 for the suggestion on a panel of editors.
Royalties
There was also another great suggestion by @cookfiction that we do this for charity and I am absolutely down for that.
I’m open for ideas on what charity we should go with, but I am thinking given that funding has been cut across the board for planned parenthood, that we donate anything we make from this to Planned Parenthood Texas, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-greater-texas.
I’m not from Texas, but it feels right.
(Edit! After some thought and conversation, I am going to put this to poll with a couple of different options! Thanks for your ideas.)
Let me know what you guys think. If there are other ideas I will put it to a poll on Twitter and we’ll go with the majority.
I’ll need to look into how we go about setting it up with the charity so that the funds go directly to them and not through me.
In Reddit parlance, TLDR; Submissions= no genre/theme, 1500 words soft limit. Deadline for up to two submissions is, 17 September 2017. This is for charity. I love you guys.
Next steps
I need volunteers to take on editing duties for the different genres- Big thanks to @selfpluspen for volunteering for editing already.
- Sci-Fi/ Dystopian: Me
- Fantasy: Filled
- Romance (supernatural or otherwise):
- Horror: filled.
- Crime: filled
- YA:
- Other (literary/contemporary): filled.
If you are interested in helping out with the editing, email me at redditwriters2017@gmail.com and we’ll chat. I think we may have to do this on a first come first serve basis.
I also need you guys to tell me what charity you want if you don’t like my idea. Do it on the twitter post linking to this blog post, so we can have an open debate, and as I said, if it differs from mine, we will just do a poll.
Finally, I need your writing. I am super excited to be a part of this project and hopefully with a good number of us on board, we can do something amazing.
PS, Apologies if I missed thanking anyone I should have. I am throwing this together as fast as I can to keep the momentum.
Write Like a Shark 
Bring on the flame, but a charity less politically and religiously charged might be a better choice. Something like Make A Wish or something that everybody can agree on. Just my thought
Okay, good thought. I think we can all get on board with make a wish.
Planned Parenthood Texas has both birth control and abortion services. I see no issues.
This sounds spectacular! For the charity I think we should find a youth arts program to donate to. So many of us are aspiring writers; I think we should pass it on to younger aspiring writers.
1500 words is a bit too little for my short stories, BUT do you accept flash fiction? Less than 500 words.
I don’t see why not! We can play a bit loose with 1500 word limit. Anywhere a couple of hundred above, I imagine would be okay too.
This is great! I think Make A Wish would be a good charity as well.
Awesome idea! Now, to find one of my stories that fits well.
Are there a limited number of entries per genre? I imagine a lot of people will be interested in either fantasy or science fiction. I’m just wondering whether it makes any difference for there to be a heavier focus on a couple of popular genres, and also for some editors to have more work to cover than others? Unless there will be multiple editors for the heavier genres? I’m happy with no limits, but was just curious on these points.
So far I’ve not really considered limiting it. I guess I was going for a try and get as many as possible and manage it from there. I’ve got a whole bunch of people willing to edit too, which is awesome. Are you thinking of submitting?
I was thinking or writing a short science fiction piece, but I was just worried that there would be too many similar stories. I just wondered if I would be better to go for a different area instead, but I think I’ll just stick to my comfort zone as it will be easier. I’ve had an idea already, so I’ve started writing something now!
This all sounds great!
Awesome, thank you!
Amazing. Thank you for the mention.
I didn’t see a preferred format. How do you want submissions?
word is preferable, if possible. if not just mail it to me and i’ll see what I can do.
Hey y’all. @selfpluspen here. I’m down with Texas Planned Parenthood as a charity. As for editing, still happy to help out. And definitely happy to copyedit the whole thing. I noticed that some of the genre slots for editing have been filled. Am I in one of those? If not, happy to help with either Romance or YA, though I have no experience with the former and as regards the latter, I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of YA fantasy/sci-fi but never written it. (My experience is more in “literary” and fantasy and sci-fi when it comes to fiction.) I’d also be super psyched to handle any poetry, if we end up accepting any such submissions, as that’s my real specialty. (But I gather that this is meant to be mostly a fiction anthology.)
Hello, is Times New Roman acceptable?
I have your entry! thanks for the submission. It has been sent to the genre editor! Good luck.
Thank you!