Jukebox Fanworks Exchange

Hi all,

I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to delay sign-ups by approximately a day as I did not budget enough time for data entry along with the increased nominations limit.

Tables of songs & sources will be up within a day.

I have re-organized the FAQ and posted it in this year's collection. Last year's FAQ, for comparison, is here.

The intentional changes are:
-podfic is now based on the tag set, so a podfic creator, or creative team, must write and record a story of 500-5000 words based on a nominated song
-Requests will be revealed as soon as assignments go out
-You can request all art, or all podfic, or whatever combination of media you want in your requests
-You are not required to request at least one song with lyrics.

Please let me know if there's a glaring error or loophole in what I have written. I may continue to tweak formatting, as my command of AO3 heading styles is poor and I don't think the result is amazingly legible yet. But I hope it is more navigable than it used to be.

I will put up a brainstorming post tomorrow!!

I have made creators' names visible on the archive. Feel free to promote your work under your own name.

Thank you to everyone, especially to Measured_Words for tag wrangling, to silverr, Flamebyrd, fleurlb, Zdenka, seekingferret, Merfilly, merryghoul, and IShouldBeWriting for pinch hitting, and to seekingferret and Measured_Words for discussing rules with me before the start of this round. Thanks also goes to paraka, chestnut_filly, originally, and akamine_chan for discussing podfic with me, and hm_f for discussing art.

As usual, I really enjoyed running this exchange and I'm glad about everyone who participated. However, everything can be improved, and if the exchange didn't work for you in some way, I'm interested in hearing about that too. Feel free to comment on this post - anonymous comments are enabled, if you prefer.

( More thoughts below - edited to add further thoughts )

Our deadline is in, very nearly, 168 hours.

You know the drill:

Countdown to the deadline

The deadline according to your time zone

Link to the collection

Thanks to all past, present & future pinch hitters. We might need a few more - if you think you can pitch in, email jukebox.mod at gmail to be added to the list. ^!^

Hi!

Since you have had your assignment for a week, it is faintly possible a post about posting to the collection is relevant. (I meant to write this post earlier, but got distracted by another exchange.)

To post a story to the collection, go to http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Jukebox2014 and click the Post to Collection button just under the title. If the story is your assignment, you can tick the box under Associations that says, "Does this fulfil a challenge assignment?" where your assignment(s) should be listed. Otherwise, you can enter the name of your recipient manually in the box underneath that says "Gift this work to: ______" A failsafe way to do this is to copy it from the list of names in the collection profile.

If you are fulfilling your assignment, there are several other ways to post your fic correctly. You can go to the collection, click on "My Assignment" on the left menu, and then click "Fulfil" at the top of that screen. Or you can click to "Fulfil" it through the "My Assignments" area of your personal page on AO3.

Treats and main assignments all go in the same collection. Your main assignment must be 1,000 words or longer. Treats can be any length. You can tag your treats "treat" if you want, or not if you don't want to. If you post a treat for someone, and the original writer defaults, I will check to make sure you're OK with your treat becoming your recipient's main gift.


Another housekeeping point: most exchanges have a default and banning policy, so here's mine. (There was none last year. No one was banned.) You cannot participate in Jukebox 2015 if you have failed to complete both of the following two criteria: posting a fic by the deadline, and commenting on the gift you receive. So if something chaotic happens to you around deadline - but you manage to come back and comment on your gift in the intervening year - then you're welcome to participate again, with no questions asked. If you complete a work but don't comment on what you received - well, I don't think it's very good manners, but I've never seen anyone successfully enforce commenting on gifts, so I'm not going to try either. Hope that's clear. I'll post a more concise version in the FAQ.

I will not grant any extensions. If your assignment is not complete at deadline, it goes to pinch hit. However, you're still welcome to post your work before the collection goes live. If your recipient gets two gifts that way, yay for them.

I posted here (DW) and here (LJ) to ask for feedback on the dates for Jukebox 2014 and whether art should be included. Thank you for your contributions - more are welcome there. I'll post my decision on dates and art at the end of this week (approx Jan 12), and that should be the last post I make until the exchange runs. The votes currently favour schedule 2.

Two issues came up in the comments, and I'd like to invite further feedback on those.

One: Some of you mentioned that you prefer not to have anon periods where the stories but not the authors are revealed. A few others chimed in to say you do like anon periods. I personally like them, but since as the moderator I know who wrote what, I realise that's moot. My current plan is to have an anon period this year, but make it much shorter than it was last year - probably 5 days. Let me know if that's a useful compromise.

Two: I floated the idea of art fills - and a couple of people raised the point that I need to define what is meant by acceptable art. Um. As I think you can tell from the design of the comms - ^!^ - I do not have artistic skill myself. Checking f_fa's archives and some other exchanges' guidelines suggests the following:

Art must be:
-complete
-a single piece between 500 and 2000 pixels in either dimension or a set of 3+ smaller pieces

Media could include
-images physically drawn & scanned
-images created with graphic programs

Art would be posted by finding a place to host the final product and embedding your fill in a work posted to AO3, since AO3 does not host art itself.

I want to also say that manipulated images are acceptable, but I have no idea how to define "you have to know what you're doing and be able to use pretty layering things and have a cool idea you want to convey" vs. "No heads pasted on and weird collages." (collages have their place! But I'm not sure people agree that they're reliably equal to a 1,000-word story.)

If anyone could point me in the direction of a more detailed set of guidelines, I'd be grateful.

However, as I post this, 1 person has said they'd give art (but only as treats), and 6 people have said they'd request art (but with caveats), so I suspect we will not try art this year.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

At that time I will send any outstanding assignments to the pinch hit list.

Good luck if you're still working, and thank you to those who have submitted their stories.

You will be able to upload treats to the collection between deadline and reveals. (You can even upload treats now. Go for it! ^!^)

Just two more posts and then I shall cease to spam the comm for some time.


Deadline
To fulfil the challenge, your story should be completed and submitted by midnight of Monday 23 September if you are in New York, or 16:00 of Tuesday 24 September if you are in New Zealand, or at the point that this countdown turns to zero. I realise a couple of the dates I put down in earlier posts were wonky. Sorry. I'll make sure someone proofreads my dates in future.

I wanted to give everyone the maximum possible writing time for this challenge, before Yuletide is likely to kick in. But because of that, the 23rd of September is a really hard deadline: I'm hoping to reveal stories just two days later. Two days after that, I'm out of all cellphone/internet access for a weekend. (And I personally want to have time to comment on stories before I leave. :D) Just please be aware that there is minimal editing time between the deadline and reveal.

Treats
Treats are encouraged!

You can submit a fic that isn't your assignment by going to the main collection page and clicking Post to Collection. Make sure you fill in your recipient's name.

If your treat is over 1,000 words, and the original writer for that person defaults, it is possible your story may become your recipient's main gift.

Because of the tight timing at the end of the writing period, I will not be creating a separate 'Madness'-style collection for smaller treats. Just post them to the main collection. You can do this at any time. The main fic you are writing for your recipient must be 1,000 words or more; there is no minimum word count for any other fics you choose to write.

Check-in
In the middle of the writing period - approximately September 2 - I will reveal all requests in the collection, and at the same time, invite people to check in with me as to their writing progress. It is not mandatory for you to contact me at this point, but I think it's a good idea for you to check how you're going. If a lot of other commitments have come up and you realise you need to default, I'd much rather know that three weeks before the deadline than learn it right at the end. (I know this is not always possible to control!)

And hey, if at that point things are going great and you're feeling confident... all the prompts will be available for your treating needs & desires.

Betas
I strongly encourage you to get your stories read by a beta. Even short treats.

You may already have a regular beta, but in case you are in need of one, I propose we arrange things Rarewomen-style, with an email list.

It works a bit like the pinch hit list. When you have a fic you'd like a second eye for, you email me (jukebox.mod) with its length, its recipient, maybe its canon, and any other information you think is relevant. I will then act as go-between and send the details to a list of people who have volunteered for beta-reading, making sure to exclude the recipient. Someone replies, I connect you with a beta-reader, all is good. The advantages here are that a writer doesn't have to carefully check a list of people's squicks and lengths-I-will-edit, and they are able to connect immediately with whoever has free time at that moment.

Potential beta readers can volunteer for the email list in the next post, which will have screened comments (just like the pinch hit list).

Comments are enabled as normal on this post, if you have any critiques or suggestions.