2012 Forum Anthology Contests

[tmso]

“The End” will be a short story apocalyptic anthology featuring speculative fiction written by the forum members of SFFWorld.com.

Speculative fiction includes: fantasy, science fiction, horror, and anything in between. The anthology will include no less than nine stories ranging in size from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Stories will be submitted via three contests on the Writing Forum of SFFWorld.com (see this thread for contest instructions). The anthology is due for release in digital format sometime in December of 2012.

NOTE: this anthology is not sponsored, initiated, approved, or in any other way associated with the owner(s) of SFFWorld.com. It is a forum community effort done entirely to please the writers who like to hang out on SFFWorld.com. Thanks for not suing us, Dag.

THE RULES and LEGALESE
(who, what, where, when, how, why; and, the contract, and the money)

WHO’s running this show?
N.E. White (tmso) is responsible for this boat. Her decisions are final, though, she has been known to sign her life away in the presence of carrot cake. Get on this ship if you trust her. Otherwise, sit back and watch the sinking. Remember to cry at the end.

WHO can submit?
Any member of SFFWorld.com can submit a story. However, you have to be a member in good standing (no strikes!), and have been a member of the forum for at least one month prior to the first day of the contest you are entering. Once you win a contest in any given year (or anthology), you are no longer eligible to enter any of the subsequent contests for that particular anthology. Exceptions may be made in the event of low interest.

WHO will vote?
If these end up like all the other contests on the forum (more than likely) then the folks doing the voting will be the writers who submitted stories. However, ANY SFFWorld.com member can read the entries and vote on their favorites. If you are a lurker (we know you’re out there), please consider joining the fray and voting.

WHAT’s this all about?
B5 got the bug started on the forum and this is the result: an anthology based on member’s tastes. We are just having fun and thought we’d share with the rest of the world.

WHAT can be submitted?
Your story must fit the theme for the contest you are submitting to. The general theme of the anthology is apocalyptic, but each contest will have a variation of that theme. For example, the first might be ‘apocalyptic tales set in a major real-world city’ or ‘apocalyptic tales on a distant planet’ etc. The story must be between 2,000 words and 5,000 words. I’ll be checking the word counts via Google Documents, and will reject anything under or over. Each rejected author will get one chance to amend their entry. If you don’t amend the entry in time, your story will not be included in the voting thread.

WHERE is this all happening?
On the Writing Forum of SFFWorld.com. Instructions and contest announcements can be found in this thread you are reading.

WHERE do I vote?
Individual voting threads will be started for each contest (a total of three for 2012).

WHEN can I submit?
Contest 1 - Submissions begin May 1st and end June 15th.

Contest 2 - Submissions begin July 1st and end Aug 15th.

Contest 3 - Submissions begin Sept 1st and ends Oct 12th.

NOTE: Theme will be announced at the beginning of each submission period.

WHEN can I vote?
Contest 1 - Reading/voting period will be from June 16th to June 30th. Winners will be announced July 1st.

Contest 2 - Reading/voting period will be from Aug 16th to Aug 31st. Winners will be announced Sept 1st.

Contest 3 - Reading/voting period will be from Oct 13th to Oct 27th. Winners will be announced Nov 1st.

WHEN will this get published?
We plan to release by December 15th, 2012.

HOW do I submit?
All submittals will be sent directly to N.E. White (tmso, me) via email (nilaewhite (at) gmail (dot) com). Please submit your stories in a format that lends itself well to uploading into a post on this forum. In other words...

• don’t use indents
• do put a line space between paragraphs
• if using italics, include the coding

NOTE: I will not format, edit, or mess with your entry any more than I have to to get the thing up onto the site anonymously. Remember, proper grammar and spelling go a long way to earning your story a vote. I will be doing some light editing once your piece has won (if needed), and will format accordingly for digital release in ebook format.

HOW do I vote?
We each have three votes per contest to dole out to those stories we think are deserving. You can use all three or just one, it is up to you. However, you can not vote three times for the same story. And, yes, you can give yourself one vote. That’s not very sportsmanlike, but you are entitled to do so. Please cast your votes on the individual threads set up specifically for each contest.

HOW do I read?
Once the voting phase begins, I will place a link to each story in this thread. The stories will be stripped of the author’s name. Each entry will only be identified by the title of the story. The stories will be stored in the Stories Sub-forum.

HOW can I help?
Please email me or PM (private message) me with what you would like to help with. If I need help, I will assign you something. Thanks!

WHY?
Why not?

WHY a blind contest?
Because it sounds fun, no?

THE CONTRACT
Here’s an example of a basic anthology contract I will be asking the winners to sign.

THE MONEY
There is none. I plan to release the digital version of the anthology for free on Smashwords. There might be a print version and if so, it will be sold at POD cost via CreateSpace. But...you get bragging rights!!! That’s better, right?

Cover concept by Chris Wilson (Wulfen), cover art by Adam Burn.

EDIT: got rid of 'post-' before the apocalyptic.