We’ve officially launched our 2022 Indeigogo campaign! This year we are excited to offer a wide selection of perks!
Green Tea Bundle
What goes better with books than TEA?! We have three different kinds of tea bundles this year, all of which include acknowledgment and thanks in the next anthology, as well as a Worldsmyths branded mug! Alternatively, you can order just the tea or just the mug! We have three different tea bundles – green tea, fruit tea, and black tea.
Additionally, we will also be offering Worldsmyths branded t-shirts and hoodies!
And of course, there’s the anthology itself – we are offering eBoooks, paperback copies of Darkness & Moonlight, limited hardback copies of Darkness & Moonlight, and a bundle package for both Myths, Legends & Dreams AND Darkness & Moonlight.
This campaign will allow us to cover the costs of publishing, in addition to stretch goals, such as offering author copies and higher editor and author pay.
If you are interested in contributing and helping us reach our goal, you can do so here. If you are unable to contribute but want to help in other ways, feel free to share the link on social media!
Myths, Legends, and Dreams! The speculative fiction short story anthology we’ve been working on since FEBRUARY. Featuring 16 short stories from 14 authors, inside the pages you will find fierce dragons, cunning succubi, and dangerous thieves. There’s a story for everyone, from retired superheroes to desperate soldiers.
We had a lot of fun putting this anthology together over the last 9 months. Well, and a lot of tears, and days where we wanted to quit, but mostly fun.
And this is only the first in the series! We will do this whole show and dance again next year, with the theme ‘Moonlight and Darkness’. Daring heists, secret trysts and deadly secrets. This anthology will feature stories that take place under the cover of darkness. What to participate? You can either join our writing Discord server (https://discord.gg/fvPPa6hQDG) or you can wait for the call to submissions to come out in early 2022!
See What the Reviews are Saying!
Celebration Livestream!
We did a looooong livestream to celebrate the launch of Myths, Legends, and Dreams! We talk about what got us into writing, what the process of making the anthology was like, and a lot of chatting about writing. We are still live at the time of posting, but if you missed it and want to see more, click the link below!
These prompts are optional. You can choose from any, all, or none of these prompts for this challenge
Prompts Theme: Sleep 1) ‘People are committing surprising acts in their sleep’ or 2) ‘Write about dream assassins who are tasked with fighting nightmares that disturb people’s sleep.’ 3) ‘Darkness and Moonlight’, stories that take place at night, deadly secrets, daring heists, and secret trysts 4) Picture prompt: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/793407659348391970/
Deadline: October 31st by 11:59 PM EST Word count: 7,000 words or fewer How to Submit: Join the Discord server! (link above)
Good news! Even though our official Indiegogo campaign ended, it turns out we qualify for their InDemand program, which means we can keep using Indiegogo to fund raise even though the main campaign ended! If you missed the campaign but still want to support us, you can go to the campaign page here.
Our beautiful cover was designed by a freelance graphic designer named Kaitlin Klockow of Nite Owl Creative. Her prices were super reasonable, she answered all of our questions, and she did an amazing job! We highly recommend her.
We hit our goal of $750 dollars today! Of course, shipping has to come out of that first, so we don’t take $750 home, but we are getting there! All the support is greatly appreciated, with this money we will be able to pay for professional cover art, interior illustrations, and an advertising campaign for the eBook.
To celebrate we are launching some stretch goals! No one likes getting paid in exposure, so our first goal is to raise an additional $250CAD, which will allow us to pay each author $10CAD. It’s still a token payment, but better than nothing!
We also are introducing a stretch goal of $1750, which would allow us to hire a (cheaper) professional editor. A professional editor starts around $750, so we have to make this goal quite high to make sure we can cover the cost.
Again, thank you so much for the support! If you are unable to financially support this campaign, feel free to share on social media, or tell your friends! Anything helps
Ally, Penguin, Tangwystle, and Sheepy (the business committee) have started reading through the Anthology stories! You will start to see comments coming in, but we ask that you refrain from making edits just yet, to give all four of us the chance to read. We will have some basic comments to you by Tuesday, April 6th, and you will have 10 days to address them (Friday, April 16th). You aren’t required to implement everything we’ve commented, there may be things we don’t understand about your story, so the comments are there to start a dialogue.
Formatting – We didn’t enforce it for the initial submission, but we ask that people go in and format their stories to fit the following requirements. This will make it 1000 times easier for us when we are preparing the manuscript for publishing. *Single spaces *Indented paragraphs *Size 12, Verdana font *ONE space after each sentence.
The Plan – Our plan is to do several rounds of editing to get these stories polished. This first round is focused more on big picture plot stuff (developmental editing) like plot, pacing, character arcs, and satisfying endings.
We invite members of the community to help edit! The link to the folder with the stories is below. Remember to comment both on things that need a second look, and on the parts you like. Once this round of editing is complete in Mid April we will do a second round of editing, making sure the stories are satisfying to read, before moving onto the more mechanical elements of writing, like eliminating Show vs Tell, filtering, and run on sentences (as a non exhaustive list)
Art! We have an artist lined up willing to do some illustrations for us, so we are asking people to go into the doc linked below and indicate which scene they would most like illustrated from their story. This doesn’t guarantee it will be illustrated, but it will help the artist select what he wants to draw.
The Indiegogo Campaign – We are currently at 88% funded (though shipping has to come out of that first, so it’s more like 50%) and we have 12 days left to go until the campaign ends. If you would like to support us, please visit https://igg.me/at/worldsmyths/x/26237864#/
Acceptance into the Anthology Because we hit the number of slots we were aiming for, we are going to accept all the stories that were submitted – with a caveat. We do expect these stories to be as polished as possible, so if an author is unable to address the comments within the 10 days given, we will have to consider removing them from the anthology. We understand that life happens of course, so if you are unable to meet the 10 day editing deadline, please let us know as soon as possible so we can look into accommodations.
We officially launched our Indiegogo campaign! This campaign is to help cover some of the costs of publishing the anthology, such as cover art, advertising, and hopefully an editor. You can find our campaign here. We would appreciate any donations, and if you can’t donate but want to share the link, you are welcome to do that as well!
Some of the perks of the campaign include: * A Youtube interview *A special Discord role *A 3D pin of the Worldsmyths logo *A paperback copy of the anthology *A hardback copy of the anthology
and more!
We’ve also made a short Youtube video to explain who we are and our Indiegogo campaign
We also have a new logo, designed by one of the admins of Worldsmyths
We look forward to continuing our campaign, and putting this anthology out into the world!
Ally Kelly (JediKnightMuse) started Worldsmyths because she had looked for a community focused on the fantasy genre, and had been unable to find one. Determined to fill the need, Worldsmyths was founded in 2016 as a Facebook page, but swiftly moved to a website forum in June of 2016.
From the start writing challenges have always been a part of the landscape. We have also always focused on driving conversation about writing and to engage with others in a helpful, friendly way. It is that attitude of support and a focus on the fantasy genre that has allowed Worldsmyths to carve out a small space for itself.
So many groups are cliquey, with an already established tight knit group of folks who don’t easily include newcomers. That is not what Worldsmyths is. We aim to be as friendly and welcoming to newcomers as possible, which is why the anthology we are putting out is especially focused on giving newbies a stress free taste of the publishing industry.
Other regular activities are Worldsmyths include a monthly community writing challenge, which has spanned from 3 to 6 months, where we gathered together to see just how many words we can write as a group (over two million, as it turns out!). We are also active during NaNoWriMo each year, with brainstorming and prep sessions, and lots of support and sympathy during the event itself.
When Elizabeth Hodgson (Penguinball) joined in 2018 she helped expand the range of activities and clubs at Worldsmyths, and helped with the transition to Discord in 2019. We added a book club, weekly discussion questions, and a goals club, all with the aim of helping to educate and reach our writing goals.
In 2019 Worldsmyths decided to move away from the website forum and onto Discord, and in early 2020 we shut down the forum entirely. We found Discord easier to use, and it allows us to reach writers that find old school forums outdated. At this point in early 2021 we have over 530 members, and continue to grow.
Worldsmyths is stronger than ever, and this anthology is the culmination of everything we have worked towards over the years. It is our fifth anniversary, and we are celebrating our members by sharing their stories with the world. But this isn’t the end. This anthology will be an annual event, and we look forward to seeing what our members write in the years to come.
