YouTube Giveaway

I knew today that I would have something to blog about, I just didn't know what.

But now I know! I'm doing a giveaway on YouTube, of The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2008. The video can be viewed here:

The info in the "sidebar"

Subscribe and answer to enter:
What's your favourite children's or young adult book, and why?

The book: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback...
The charity: http://www.lauracranetrust.org/
The group: http://literaryden.wordpress.com/

Deadline: Feb 10th 2010

Good luck everyone! (remember, comments on the video, not here!)

Magazine Competition

Hi all!

Well, I've been discussing this on the Lit Den forums, and we're hosting a raffle of sorts, a giveaway. It's very easy, for the fiction writers, journalists, poets, artists and photographers to be in with a shot at winning.

Now, we can't afford to just hand out books like other people (although I do have a few I will probably be giving away at some stage). However, we have three copies of The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009 to give away to the public when it's released. As far as I know, this will be in the middle of July, or perhaps a little later.

So here's how to win. Very easy, just submit to our magazine! Every submission, including those already made by members of the public, will be entered into a RANDOM draw to win one of the three books. All the money from the books goes to the Laura Crane Trust (reg. 1058464), based in Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

So what to submit?

We're accepting: articles relevant to the literary world, preferrably not something that will be old news very quickly; short stories in any genre, although if you're aiming for younger readers, please mention that; poems on any topic; comic strips which can be expected to continue through the magazine; artwork and photography that displays a message, or is a demonstration of real talent; writing tips, although it should be pointed out that we will be reading these, and if no one can see the point in what you're saying, it's likely it won't get in (general tips work best; the more experience you have, the better); book reviews of your favourite books, ever - any related to members of the Den are even better!

When to submit?

Right up to the release, and beyond. Although, unless there are huge delays, the competition will close the moment the book hits the proverbial bookshelf. Take it as being mid-July, but keep an eye on our Twitter to get the finalised date.

Where to submit to?

I will be accepting all magazine entries. Send them to literary_mania(at)yahoo(dot)ie with the subject line Magazine Submission on or before the closing date to be entered. All successful entries will be published in the magazine, though not all in the same issue, based on the number of submissions we get.

This is a new magazine people, specifically for the public! Tell your friends!

Note of word limits

Short stories up to 3,000 words will be accepted. We would prefer a minimum of 1,500 words, although less than that may still be published. Articles and reviews must not exceed 1,500 words, unless the subject content is large; contact us in advance if you're not sure. Poems can be of any length, though poems of length greater than 80 lines may not be published. Comic strips may consist of 1-6 panels. If successful, expect further contact to arrange sequel comics.

The Literary Den reserves the right not to publish work (although this doesn't happen a lot after we've said 'yes.') Please send in material in an editted form. The prize of three books may be subject to change, although such changes will be made public the moment they are final. Copyright remains with the author, although by submitting to the Literary Den, we reserve the right to publish your work elsewhere - note that the members of the Literary Den are not making a profit from the magazine or other sales. Any money the Den does acquire that is not related to the Laura Crane Trust will be used to further the promotion and development of the Den, and will not be split among the active parties of the Den.

Also note that successful poets will be contacted to submit to the an Anthology of Poetry, editted by Elizabeth Dyer.

Any further questions can be posted here, or emailed to me @ literary_mania(at)yahoo(dot)ie

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Stories le Lulu.com

So I was checking out Lulu.com, following my previous rant about expensive printing costs, and I found a rather easy way to provide the short stories for charity in print. I can even make them in colour if I want, but I don't see the point as I'm not much of a drawer, and I don't have suitable models for photographs.

However, if I were to print in colour, I could get what I estimate to be 16 pages printed in A5 for only €6.00! That's quite good! Add on €1.25 for revenue (€1 for charity, €0.25 for Lulu.com) and it's only €7.25 to print. In black and white printing, it costs even less! For a mere €4.61, the same size book can be printed. Adding on the same revenue and it only costs €5.86! Less than €6.oo people! It's a bargain, and that's only for people who want hard copies of the stories. It's great news for me, who will want to print a hard copy to display them at some stage.

If I choose to go for Lulu.com and Amazon.com though, it could be more expensive. In fact, I believe the price is doubled! So for those ones, I will be printing three stories together and upping the revenue to €3.75 so that each story still earns the same amount for a sale. I will need to do further investigation into the matter.

Still, low prices for stories, with all the money going to charity! Some specific charities I'd like to support are: The Laura Crane Trust, The Hanly Foundtation and The Manuela Riedo Foundation, who each deal with specific problems facing people. The LCT are sort of our partners in the Den; all the money we raise goes to them. The Manuela Riedo Foundation is a new one, which my friend Niamh is singing for in July (in Switzerland!!) The Hanly Foundation were really annoying people last Friday, but with a good cause. I'd like to support them if I can, but all I could do was buy a scratch card then, and only to get rid of them.

Naturally, I'll need to get in touch with every charity in advance to get a logo and a registered charity number. Here's where you can come in! Recommend a charity, leave a link to it, and I'll see if I'm not already covering the topic. If I am and I'm not writing for a charity under that topic, then I will pick the most suitable charity (based on the recommendations given).

If your recommendation is accepted, you'll be entered into a draw to win a free paperback copy of the story representing the charity. In fact, you'll get multiple entries. Each time a story is released, there will be a competition for one person to win a hardcopy of it, shipped to anywhere in the world! And it couldn't be easier to win. Just keep telling people about the stories, through Twitter and blogging and word of mouth, and each time someone says you recommended the stories, you'll get an entry. There will be more details later when the first story is published, which, by the way, I have begun planning.

Watch this spot ladies and gentlemen!!

It's been a while, etc...

Hello, valuable and non-existant readers!

I have been vanished for a good long while from this blog. I missed it a few minutes ago, and decided to give one massive update on it.... I've just checked my last post, and I discovered I used the term vanished then too.... righto!

Well, I completed NaNoWriMo. That was easy, and way back in November. I wrote a novel called Meet Sam, which I will get back to in a little while. I will tell you that it was super fun to write and came in at 50,074 words according to the NaNoWriMo drones. Following that, I was very lazy at writing, but managed to get Geneticide finished in January. Hurray for me! Since then, I've had Mocks (I did rather poorly in them), an oral Irish exam, and have had a huge number of writing related things happening. But let's do this properly - chronologically!

Meet Sam is a fantastic novel (for me) following a helplessly poor writer through one day of his otherwise dull life. He's single, and miserably so, and decides to invent a narrator for himself. Sam Richards is in fact a wee bit crazy. His narrator abuses him at every opportunity, but in the 24 hours that she exists, his life changes dramatically. The book is that story! As part of the deal for completing NaNoWriMo, I got to get a free proof copy of Meet Sam from a group of people called CreateSpace. They even covered the postage. That was nice of them. The book is a delightful addition to my collection, and has caught the attention of my mother's friends at work.

Geneticide finished with a much higher word count. I don't even know what it is, only that it's rather good. The story went exactly as planned, which I'm happy about. It took very long to write, but I think it'll do well if it ever goes anywhere.

In February, I turned 18. Normally, I don't celebrate my birthday with such excitedness, but this was the February midterm break too. This called for celebration. I threw a house party. It was a delightful gathering of my friends, during which there was a movie and a giant personality test. I'll expand on that now! The movie was in fact a home movie of sorts - Meet Sam, as done by my friends Karl, Andrew, Ciarán and Conor. They gave up a few afternoons to do it. Karl has since failed to upload it onto Youtube a dozen times, so I cannot share it with you. The personality test was the BBC one. It was rather fun, and had my friends bashing against each other in my kitchen. It was not built to hold 14 people in a tiny square.

Then came March, this month. I can tell you that things really changed this month. It's almost at an end too, so if there was nothing to report, there would be a problem. Now, I can't remember what happened first in all this, so I'll just ramble on about the various different things that have happened.

Let's start with dear old Patricia Scanlan! She did a book signing a couple of weeks ago to promote her new book Happily Ever After? at my shop. It was a great experience in itself to watch it and help out, btu then something really fun happened! She found out that I'm a writer, and told me to give her a call when my novel (Meet Sam) was editted, so that she could give it to her publishers! I was utterly gobsmacked!! Imagine me, a published author! With Transworld Ireland!!!

Then there's Battlefront. This is a Channel Four television show that encourages a whole set of campaigns from young people to help change the world. I submitted The Literary Den Campaign to them... and we're second in the voting stages. In a few days, voting stops and it goes to the "judges." If they pick my campaign, I may be on television!! That would be amazing!

The campaign is all about making reading and writing cool again. People seem to get bored with them ratehr easily these days. They abandon the thoughts of them for a TV show or a movie, or for mindless internet games. It's an awful shame, because they really are valuable skills for both work and life. Writing is a way of ridding oneself of the weird little ideas in their heads that can cause us troubles. I have not heard of any dangerous writers out there, so I must be right.

The campaign also sets out to start a mentoring system to help younger writers with their stuff. I'm one of the mentors, although we are without mentorees. I'm hoping to convince my good friend Sam to do it. He started writing a book way back in the summer and since stopped doing it. If I can spark his interest in writing again, and be his mentor to guide him along the way, then I'm doing something right. From there I'd like to see what the group can do. We may even be able to organise talks at schools! That would be sweet!

So, there's my campaign. Some of it, at least. If you wish to support us, you can vote at: http://battlefront.co.uk/campaign/the-literary-den-campaign Thanks a million in advance!!

Moving on now, I've subscribed to a magazine called The Stinging Fly. I've also submitted to them. By the end of the month, or in early April, I should hear from them to see how my submission of a short story and two poems went down. I imagine the story, called The Wounded Angel, stands a better chance than the poems, but who am I to judge? Fingers crossed anyway!

Now here's another big thing! The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009 is underway! We're putting the stories together as I type. Well, I mean people are writing them. If they're anywhere near as uncomfortable as I am right now, they might just be finishing them. This year, we're still supporting the Laura Crane Trust, but we have a few fresh faces! Brendan McLoughlan has joined our ranks from Howth, and Lisa Sills has returned to submit this year (she vanished just before it was announced last year, and arrived when the deadline passed). Jonathon Bell from Bermuda (living in Dublin) has submitted, and his wife, my good friend Liz, is due to submit too. It's a wonderful group of Irish writers joining the fray! I'm delighted with it.

The 08 Anthology is still on sale. I do hope you'll consider purchasing a copy. All the money goes to the charity. We're not greedy or anything. But we do like to bring it up a lot. For instance, today I had to tell a teacher in charge of my school's awards system about it for Charity and Public Service. If I win.... well I'll be well chuffed!! Purchase the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/2619890

I may also be up for Best All-Round Student, but that's still in doubt. A teacher, the one in charge of the school magazine, said she'd nominate me for it. I've been a "one man army" in the computer room trying to get the 09 issue under wraps. Then I'm done with that establishment for good. That'll be weird! But I can't wait. Fingers crossed for the awards!

So, I think that's it for now. I've been extremely boring I bet, but I don't mind all that much. I've just needed to get all that out at once. Hopefully I'll be back. Whatever happens, always remember that the pen is mightier than the sword - violence is not the way forward. Books are!