Sometime between Wed - Friday this week Erin will set up the voting page. At least 8-9 days from the day the voting page is posted will be the voting period. We are giving plenty of time for everyone to thoroughly read and decide which story to vote for. The Voting will be done by 1 vote per registered user for their 1 favorite story.
June is upon us, and our authors need a good swift "impetus" to exercise their minds and fingers upon. This Contest will last a total of six weeks for submissions (Absolutely no rescheduling of the deadline for any reason - winners need to be announced and Sephrena will be mailing the awards out to the designated winners). The voting will occur over a 7 day period by registered site users only and only 1 vote per user. The 3 top stories will be awarded a prize designated as follows: 1st place - $75, 2nd place - $50, 3rd place - $25. The winners will need to pm Erin, Sephrena or Edeyn with their mailing address to mail them their money. All prizes will be mailed the day after the winners announcement.
Rules for the contest are as follows:
- Theme - Romance (sweet, sentimental, both, or bittersweet)
- Story Length - any length.
- Characters - the romance must involve at least 1 character who is a TG, TV, TS, BI, Gay, Lesbian, or genderqueer (a challenging individual that shifts gender quite frequently)
- Character Age - Any age group, but ABSOLUTELY NONE of the stories are allowed to contain underage graphic sex! Underage is defined as anyone under the age of 16! However, kissing, cuddling, holding another in their arms is allowed in the underage Age group.
- Time period - any era, fantasy, sci-fi, any environment in which the author wishes to place her/his characters.
- Fiction - May be fiction or non-fiction.
- Type of Submission - can be a short story, a poem, a novel, a piece of any length. To enable fairness to everyone, No chapters of ongoing serials will be allowed. This is to level the playing field for all author entries and for the readers to decide. Any Universes may used as Fanfics for submission as well. The only restriction is that this work be a NEW writing and not already posted anywhere else prior to the starting date of this contest. This is for new works only, and as such, please do not use anything recycled from other sites.
- Contest Duration - 6 weeks - no extensions.
- Starting Date - 3:00am Eastern US time June 12, 2009
- Closing Date - 3:00am Eastern US time July 27, 2009.
- Marking Your Story - There will be a selection in the +fiction page under CONTESTS entitled "Summer Romance Story Contest 2009" to mark your story with. PLEASE CHECK TO ENSURE THAT YOU MARK YOUR ENTRY.
- Number of Submissions - Any author may submit any number of new entries that are validly marked in the contest box, but only one entry per author will be counted in the final totals, the one that gets the top number of votes from that author will be the one counted for purposes of determining winners.
- Voting Dates - Have yet to be determined as Erin will create the voting module as soon as the contest ends, and the Voting period will be for 1 week. Voting is limited to REGISTERED site users only.
- Tie-breaking - In the event of a Tie for any position, Erin, Sephrena, Edeyn and the involved winners will discuss a suitable resolution between the placed winners and/or issue additional prize monies. The results of the contest will be posted within 24 hours of the declared winners and all prize resolutions will be announced along with the winners.
- Prizes - 1st place - $75, 2nd place - $50, 3rd place - $25. All money prizes are awarded in US dollar value via money order mailed to the designated winners. (For our non North American registered users - if you have a paypal account and would like direct deposit of the award money through that, I can arrange to do that as well.)
Comments
The Contest Entry Tag
is already up on the +Fiction page under contests. If you want to post it ahead of time, just post it unpublished in the content queue or preset it's posting date under authoring options. Entries posted on the front page before the starting date cannot be eligible. I am sorry for the rules and being a little stickler with it but its to ensure a fair contest for everyone =^_^=
Sephy
Wow...
Much to my surprise I've already got an idea for this contest. I'm usually very leery of trying to write romantic stuff. They say to write what you know, and romance definitely isn't it! Still, I'll give it a try.
Saless
P.S. What is 3:00am Eastern US time in Pacific Coast US time? (Would that be midnight here? I can never remember how many hours different it is, or which direction it goes.)
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
Midnight, server time
If you're using the standard theme, the server time is at the top of the right hand column.
Sephrena chose to put the time up in US East Coast time because more than 50% of our readers (but not 60% of our writers) are on Eastern time. We have a lot of British and California writers that skew the demographic. Heck, Angharad skews it all by herself if you count writers by story output. :)
Readers:
Eastern time zone, >50%*
Central time zone, ~15%
Pacific time zone, ~10%
Mountain time zone, <5%
Greenwich time zone, ~10%*
Rest of the world, <10%
Eastern and Greenwich time zone readers are probably over-represented because some computers have one of those as a default time setting and lots of people never set their clock. :)
Note that Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific times include most of the Americas, not just the contiguous US.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I object
I've probably said this before, but it isn't fair to use a chapter out of a popular serial for a contest entry. It is very hard to vote based on a chapter of a story that you already like well enough to follow. I could easily see a chapter of Football Girl or Princess and the Plague being entered and garnering enough votes to win because of how well the story are like as a whole.
I think it is fairer all around to limit entries to new stories written for the contest.
My 2 cents...and chances are I won't even enter!! :)
Frank
SRC 2009 Rules Change
TY Frank for that comment. That was something I did overlook and did change the Rules to reflect.
Sephrena
Uh oh...
What about being in the same universe as an existing series? I've already written quite a bit on mine, but it's set in the same universe as my KittyHawk series, is that a problem? The characters, locations, and timeline are all different.
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
Saless You Can Use the Same Universe
of an existing series but do not involve the characters of the other series with these characters in the contest entry. Remember, this should be new, on its own, and not dependent on the other series in the universe. Should be Fresh, Different, and Standing on its own without interference from the other series.
Sephrena
Phew!
Thanks for clearing that up, Sephrena! I was planning on having a little cameo at the very end, but I can cut that out easily enough and there won't be any contact with anyone or anyplace in KittyHawk. I'm glad I'll still be able to use it, I've already written 9,000-10,000 words! Not that I wouldn't have written it, anyway, but this way I don't have to come up with something different for the contest.
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
I won't be entering
I don't think I'll be entering this year, not because I don't want to, but simply because nothing will be ready in time. I've about ten stories on the go at the moment; I know where three of them are going but they've taken two years to get this far, and there's no sign of an end yet. And the big one is 300 pages already; I don't like to post until the whole thing's written, so you might get a Christmas story out of me.
Susie
Future Contests/Challenges
We've got three more chances planned for anyone who feels competitive this year. August-September will be the "What I Did on my Summer Vacation" challenge, then October will have the "TG Terror/Horror" Contest (kind of an unusual theme) and we'll round off the year with a "Gifts and TransGiving" contest in November-December.
Nothing scheduled for January but so far next year we've got "Short Story Month" in February and a "2010 Summer Romance" planned. Anyone wants to sponsor a contest next year, PM me to discuss it. Most contests have a four to six week submission period and a week to three week voting period. Some contest have monetary prizes but bragging rights are prize enough for most of them. Voting is handled differently in almost every contest in order to keep one method from being too favorable to one kind of entry.
But the real winners in every BC contests are the authors who get challenged and the readers who get to experience their stories!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Suggestion:
Since the contest has already started, could you maybe change that header line where it says "Contest starting Date is June 12, 2009" to "Contest has started. Closing Date is July 27, 2009", just so absentminded procrastinators could tell just by looking on the front page how much longer they have to get those stories out?
Edited to add: Thanks, whoever changed that!
Where do I Vote???
Sorry.... I think I am a little "blonde"... I wish.... but where do I vote? Where is the link to vote???
Terry
Contest isn't over yet, voting will be announced
We'll make sure everyone gets a chance to vote. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Sadly...
The entry I've been working at won't be ready in time (in less than 30 minutes now). ._. Sorry, Sephy. I guess I'll take a little longer, and see if I can make it work better than it has been.
-Liz
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"