Would you allow your 75 stories to be published in a collection

[Parson]

I think that this has a lot of merit, unless we start thinking of profits which will be 0. (I'd be happy to have to eat crow about that comment!) But it seems to me that the more people we have involved the better it will be. Chris et. al. is right about the diversity being part of the charm. I also seems to me that there would need to be something like a one line bio for each writer (Would we use our screen names?) i.e. Parson -- A pastor from Iowa

 

[mosaix]

Distribution of money is always a problem. How about all profit to charity?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I had been thinking about asking this question with an eye toward making it a yearly anthology on CafePress. (In reading the Lulu explanation above, I see that they are likely the same thing with different names.) My question was to involve the possibilities of no profit (except obviously CafePress or whomever would make some, but no extra above that cost), profits to go to the forum somehow, profits to go to some charity of choice, and so on.

Cost there would depend on how many pages, but it wouldn't be prohibitive.

My thinking was that each month's total collection of stories would be its own chapter, and I figured that the first year's book would just be a bit short since it started in April -- rather than going from April to March for each year's collection. (Yes, optimism is rampant here--but the challenge shows no signs of slowing down.)

So put me down for a yes, whatever you're doing. (Ahh, the advantages of procrastinating in asking this question come clear -- now someone else is doing the work, and not me! But I would also be happy to help if you need any assistance in paginating and formatting it all for publication.)

I would not be averse to fixing punctuation and spelling errors, but otherwise the stories should remain as they were entered. Slippery slope, and all that.

 

[Parson]

DZ brilliant idea about the profits, if any!, going to the forum. I'm quite sure that Brian operates this forum at a loss and if this book could help with that in any way, I'd be all for it.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, it could easily be set up as a forum account on CafePress -- Brian would have to be involved in putting that information in, but it's easy and free -- and you can set whatever markup above cost you like. Anytime a book sold, it would automatically credit that account with the markup amount.

 

[nixie]

Everyone has given a resounding yes. I for one have never thought I'd see something of mine in print.

I don't know anything about publishing, Ian Whates would be a good person to ask or Mark Robson as I think Mark was self published.Then there is Teresa who has had quite a few of her works published.

As for profits can't see it generate a lot but what about given a share to Brian towards the up keep of the forum.

I'll go along with the majority. Although mine probably wouldn't make the grade as never having managed a vote

 

[mosaix]

There is the question of those entries that not one of us understood (apart from the author, of course).

Are we going to allow some kind of explanation or leave the public at large confused as well.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Mosaix: I think Stormfeather covered this quite well. There could be URLs to the discussion threads in the book, so that if someone feels the need then that would be be their option to ask (and sign up to the site)

As for author names. I'd be tempted to keep the user names although I'm not sure if this is allowed legally. Given I know there are other people with TEIN as a user name on other forums. (But only one with this site of course).

Maybe we could have both although some might want to keep their anonymity.

As for all the profits all going to the site/charity, I would be happy for a proportion. I was thinking 20% or so to Brian as we will be relying heavily on his good offices to allow us to run the competition and publish his URLs to the world.

The thing is I suspect this would be a novel thing and it just, just might take of like wildfire. I haven't heard of an anthology being created this way and the newness - web related - and the like just might make it a real seller. (We can hope after all if we can't have our fantasies who can?)

I can certainly see the more 'out there' TV programs getting on to it if only to fill broadcasting time.

 

[chopper]

hopefully agreeing with all points so far doesn't put me into any contradictory stances. if typesetting is required i'm more than happy to help out (yes, i do know how to use capital letters, current appearances notwithstanding).

the one downside that lulu has is that the postage costs are pretty nasty. might be worth some research on services we could use - who says we have to be 100% print? we could be kindle/ebook/widget/etc as well.

 

[alchemist]

Parson -- A pastor from Iowa

But you work in outer space, right?

 

[No One]

It's got my vote anyway

The only issue I could foresee with regard to the competition itself is that the possibility of being published might drastically increase the number of entries and not necessarily the number of votes, though I could be wrong (and usually am).

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I agree with what The Judge said.

Both in terms of the majority wanting to get published (a fact proven by the current poll standing, which shows 100% voting "Yes"), as well as the issues with who decides which stories would go in, and how said person would arrive at those decisions.

 

[Ursa major]

Would you allow your 75 word stories to be published in an anthology?

I have, of course, voted Yes, if for no other reason that all our 75-word stories are already published, in the sense that they are in the public domain as soon as they're posted here (as reading most posts on the Chrons is not restricted in any way).

 

[J Riff]

I don't think the winning stories matter so much, though obviously they would be included.
Without reading all the responses to this yet - what about editing? Someone would have to oversee, arrange and yes, even edit some bits n' pieces, here and there. It's why I was wondering about the word count - if it takes 80 words to make a particular story achieve maximum effect, and an editor is willing to do so...
It's strange because it isn't like submitting 100,000 wds. and having a bunch of details that need changing... w/ 75 words, every word counts.

 

[Ursa major]

Sometimes the words that look misspelt** (or, if you prefer, misspelled ) are meant to be spelt (spelled) the way they are. And that's without considering whose spelling - US, UK, whatever, no-one's - is to be followed.








** - Expects PETA may have a problem with this lady.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, when I mentioned misspellings I was thinking of the obvious typos and such; I believe I can recognize/recognise most of the American/English differences and would certainly ask if not. But I'm a proofreader by nature (only informally by occupation) and it would drive me nuts to publish a book without correcting things that needed correcting.

No changing the words or adding new ones, however; that would prove confusing to the readers of a "75-word story anthology" when they started counting and found some were too long. They'd wonder what kind of ship we're running over here. And count, they would -- haven't all of us counted the words in some stories that just seemed too rich to be only 75?

 

[J Riff]

Wellll.... I think that an editor.... nobody should have any issues w/ an editor changing, say, the structure of a particular sentence.
Nothing drastic or dramatic... but admittedly, people here are still learning to write, we all are, and these stories were slung up there based on a topic, many of them spontaneously composed for the challenge... so, having someone like TE or any other professionally-qualified editor change anything they feel improves the overall story... without actually re-writing it...*... should be acceptable.
If one submits a novel or short story and it comes back w/ suggestions, which the author then incorporates- it still comes out under said authors aegis, no?
Perhaps the only name on the cover would be: Edited by ( ) anyway, may as well make use of their fabulous skill.
Many, most of the stories would probably pass an editor- we'd have to ask one. )

 

[Susan Boulton]

Just a few points;

You need an good editor, what he/she says goes and all contributors agree to this re contract/agreement.

You need everyone in the anthology to sign a solid contract/agreement so you have no future tussles re money, publishing credits etc. ( I seen attempts to publish anthologies from forum comps go belly up because of this)

And oh, all the best in your effort to get this off the ground.

 

[J Riff]

Sjab makes the point.

Looks like it will take an Editor, someone not involved in the challenge personally, probably- to take an interest in the project.
Can't see why there's any hurry though. And like Judge and others said- they may change words, sentences, title...anything they like in order to put together a...cohesive package of the glittering brilliance they have to work with. The raw materials, like diamonds, must be polished before being placed before the hungry masses.

 

[Ursa major]

I don't think an editor should be able to change words without the author's consent; as I said before, some words may look misspelt but are written with the letters in the order they are for a reason. (The same may apply to word order.)