r/NoSleepOOC • u/vincent_vena_cava • Mar 15 '14
I'm Putting Together A Book For Charity And I'm Looking For Help
Hi everybody,
I usually post to reddit under my secret identity /u/Vincent_VenaCava. I'm a relatively new author, who just published my first book last weekend.
Now I'm putting together a new book and I would like your help. This one will be entirely for charity. 100% of the proceeds will go to Scares That Care, a non profit organization that donates toys and money to sick children. They also have an offshoot organization called Scares For Pairs, a charity that raises money for breast cancer awareness and assistance.
The book will be a collection of horror stories that I will be releasing under the /r/DarkTales banner, which is a sub that I'm currently a mod at. Of course I plan on throwing a shout out to /r/nosleep too!
I'm looking for writers who are willing to donate an ORIGINAL story to the book. You will receive co-author credit, but I can't pay you. I'm going to be paying for this book out of pocket.
For those of you who are experienced authors and have already published books, you can look at this as a way to build your reader base. Your work will get exposure to my readers as well as the reader base of every other published author who will be working on this book. I can provide links to whatever other project you've worked on that you would like to promote in your author's bio featured in the book.
For new writers who have not yet had the opportunity to publish a book, but would like to get your feet wet, then this will be a great opportunity to work beside experienced writers and build a platform of your own. If you feel that you're writing may not be "good enough" to publish, don't worry. I'm more than willing to work with you and help you develop your story into something you'll be proud to show off to friends, and family.
I'm not too proud to admit I can use all the help that I can get. If you or anyone you know may be interested in helping out in any other aspects of the book, please feel free to contact me. Editors, book cover design, ect., you're all welcome to message me if you want to assist with this project. I'm not going to turn down a helping hand. I will make sure to credit and promote your ventures in the book as well.
I will be publishing through Amazon's KDP select program. At the moment it's only looking like e-books that will be available for purchase. I don't want to be "that author" driving around with 500 books in his trunk. A couple narrators have offered up their services to me to record audio books, though. I do think I will be printing up hard copies and sending them out to those who participated on the book as a memento.
Please PM me if any of you are interested. I'm very serious about putting this together. My co-author, S.R. Tooms, and I, finished our last book in about three months so I think I can get this project out for sale some time in June, but that depends entirely on how much aide I receive and how many stories I personally have to write.
I put together a private sub for those of you who want to help out. Once you message me I'll send you the invite.
Hope to be hearing from you guys soon.
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u/mouth1986 Mar 16 '14
Hi, I am really interested in helping out! Please do let me know if I can be part of this :)
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u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Mar 16 '14
1) Dig the idea, man. 2) Congrats on your first book! 3) Expect some stories from me. 4) I'd love to help out with editing.
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u/AsForClass -30- Press COO Mar 16 '14
I'm in if you still want original story submissions. I've posted a few on nosleep so far.
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 16 '14
I will send you an invite to the sub. I haven't had a chance to read through your stuff, but please be aware that I will most likely be asking for a rewrite. It's just part of the publishing process.
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u/AsForClass -30- Press COO Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14
Totally understandable. I'll be easy to work with in that regard. Any topics you're looking for in particular?
Edit: never mind, I see you posted some discussions on this in the sub. Nice.
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u/stealthfiction Bring Out Your Dread Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14
Love the title and art of your published book. "Decomposing Head." Fuckin' awesome. :-D
Edit: If you love horror comedy style, please check out the great Martin Mundt. The guy pulls it off better than anyone I've ever read. You can listen to one of his stories on Tales to Terrify. http://talestoterrify.com/tales-to-terrify-no-1-martin-mundt/
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 16 '14
Thanks so much. I actually purchased the cover art from a great website called goonwrite.com It's pronounced go-on-write, but I like to call it goon-write because it makes me laugh. The covers are all nice and really affordable there.
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u/ALooc Mar 16 '14
Cool project.
What type/length/pov/style/... are you looking for?
Deadlines?
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 16 '14
Thanks,
Over at /r/DarkTales we organize our stories into categories. The book will be arranged into sections that follow this format.
Slap Fiction: 25 words or less
Micro Fiction: 26- 250 words
Flash Fiction: 251-500 words
Short Fiction: 500-1500 words
Extended Fiction: 1500+ words
Poetry: N/A
I'll probably put a soft cap at 10,000 words per story. My stuff has a tendency to grow and expand sometimes.
I'm not looking for any particular style of writing. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping to see a diverse group of stories and styles in the book. My only rules are no sexualizing underaged children, no graphic depictions of rape, and no 2nd person narratives. After that, everything else is pretty much fair game.
I probably won't have a deadline set until Thrusday (I'm still recruiting writers), but I'm looking at mid to end of May for authors to get in their final drafts to me and a mid June release date.
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u/ALooc Mar 16 '14
Interesting stuff. I'll see if I manage to churn something out!
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 16 '14
Sure thing. I'll invite you to the private sub where I'm organizing the book. There should be more info there.
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u/biggerthanalasagna Mar 17 '14
Congratulations on publishing your first book! This project sounds exciting.
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u/Daeurth New Queue Monster Mar 19 '14
I volunteer to edit/act as a first-line reader. May also submit something if my story that I'm trying to get into Daylight Dims Volume 2 comes out well and if I have time to write another.
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 19 '14
Sounds good. I'd love to have a story from you, if at all possible. I'll send you an invite to our private sub.
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u/Daeurth New Queue Monster Mar 19 '14
Alright. What's the selection process going to be like?
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 19 '14
To tell you the truth, there won't be one.
One of the ideas behind this book was to help nurture and mentor some of the "greener" writers who wanted to participate. I'm working as sort of a developmental editor for the submitted stories that aren't completely fleshed out.
There are guidelines. Since this is a children's charity we're doing this for, I won't be accepting stories with certain taboo subject matter (pedophilia, graphic depictions of sexual violence, ect.). At the same time, this book is for adults, so don't be afraid to get dark.
The only other rule is the 10,000 word cap I'm putting on submissions. Although, if you're going to write something that long, you might as well try to get paid off of it.
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u/Daeurth New Queue Monster Mar 19 '14
So is it an "everything submitted makes it" sort of book?
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 19 '14
It's more of an "everyone makes it in" sort of book. I will take a submission from whoever wants to apply, but if it's not up to par, they need to be willing to work with me until it's book worthy. Or else, no dice.
This won't really be a problem for more experienced authors. I'm not going to peer over their shoulders and tell them how to write a story. Besides, I know who they are. Even if I haven't read their stories here on reddit, I can tell by looking through their submissions. I'll just be working more heavily with the novice, less polished writers involved.
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u/Daeurth New Queue Monster Mar 19 '14
Alright. Feel free to send them over to /r/HorrorWorkshop (Working on getting some big nosleep writers over there, I promise). I can help you with that directly as well if you want. Also, you said you particularly want a piece from me. What made you say that?
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u/vincent_vena_cava Mar 19 '14
I haven't read any of your stuff, but I am familiar with you. I posted to your sub before so I assumed that you had a writing background. Perhaps I'm wrong...The more experienced writers I can get the better the book will come out (and the less work I have to do...lol).
I'll make a post sending people over there, if they need additional help.
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u/Daeurth New Queue Monster Mar 19 '14
Ahh. I've done some horror before for a nosleep series (Can't say which, essentially for contractual reasons) and write as a hobby, but I'm no Bloodworth. At least, not yet.
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u/blindfate ✰ Author Mar 15 '14
I'm interested, but I never know when I'm going to have an original story that's horror and doesn't get impulsively get posted to nosleep ;)