An opportunity for every Indian blogger to get published!

Renie Ravin
Renie Ravin
from Chennai
11 years ago

IndiBloggers!

On August 15 2012, on our independence day and IndiBlogger’s 5th anniversary, comes an opportunity for every Indian blogger to get published! Smile

IndiBlogger.in in association with HarperCollins will give you insight and a whole new perspective of the world of publishing. Submit your own stories, learn from the authors, talk to the editors, join a social community of book lovers and see your work in print.

Do help us spread the word, and get Yash Lal's book to start your first review:

http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/

Keep blogging!

Replies 161 to 180 of 197 Descending

Though not a part of contestants here, I too see this page often just too see my friends name in the lists Smile

The results are out but there are only a paltry 10 winners. I always thought this was about around 25-30 stories. Quite a bit of a surprise, you know. I mean how will just 10 stories suffice to make up an entire book. Perplexed but happy that the resuts are finally out. congratulations to all the winners Smile

C. Suresh
C. Suresh
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congratulations to all the winners.

Cannot help agreeing with Tushar. With 3k-4k words, the book will be only about 30k-40k words - I have seen hardware installation guides that are larger than that. Seems like a paltry return for an exercise than spanned almost three-fourths of an year. Other publishers like Penguin, Mahavir et al have completed contests and brought out more substantial books in less than third the time.

The outcome, unjustifiedly perhaps, makes it look as though the publicity for already published H-C books was more the point of the exercise than this book that they intend publishing. I hope that impression is belied by the seriousness with which they take up the production and publicity for this book The winning authors must have a lot of hopes and pride invested in the book and may their hopes be met.

Deepa Duraisamy
from Mumbai
10 years ago

30-40K does sound more like a little study guide - I did hope it would come out to be a nice anthology size kinds. Fablery with Mahaveer did theirs with 10 stories but each of them was about 7K-7.5K. I wonder why a 40K book? Plus I remember in the forums where Yashodhara Lal had comments saying keep it closer to 3K than 4K. Anyway, hope it comes out soon! Congratulations to the winners! And best wishes for the road ahead! Cheers!

Tushar Kumar Singh
from Delhi,Mumbai
10 years ago

That is the precise connotation I formed after witnessing the delays that were so very prevalent in this contest. The way the dates kept on moving ahead, it seemed they were willing to buy more time to put up some more scripts for review. And the way they eventually nullified their presence on the get published forum, it kind of seemed very specious. This happened precisely after the contest was moving towards the dusk. As if they kind of conjured that they are no longer needed there as their main task is already done. Whether they were messed up with what is their main agenda - GetPublished or GetOthersReviewed or whether this whole contest was manly a fudge with one motive veiling the other, that only time will tell. Smile

Nandini Deka
from Bombay
10 years ago

the get published page says >> Though this contest is over, the stories aren't finished yet. The winners will receive an email outlining the next steps. We wish you the very best in this next phase, where you will work closely with Harper Collins on the road to getting published. 

 

so, it seems they'll be asked to expand their selected stories

TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Deepa - I think they can make cute little romantic books with 30-40 K. Check out Westlands' mythological love stories series by Ashok Banker.

Aseem Rastogi
Aseem Rastogi
from Lucknow
10 years ago

Congratulations to all the winners. Am sure yours must have been some really good stories. All the best :). 

But seriously there are a few issues with the way this competition was organized.

After getting shortlisted for the second round, below is a part of the mail which I got from Indiblogger -"In the next stage, we'll be selecting and declaring the top 50 short stories - and post the final round of evaluation by our panel of judges, consisting of the HarperCollins editorial team and our contest mentor Yashodhara Lal   , we'll be making announcements about the stories that go into the final book.

 

Honestly, did the rules change in the interim? This mail came on Feb 21st. I don't remember any information anywhere telling us that only 10 stories will be selected. More than me not getting selected, what disappoints me the most is that this competition went on for almost a year and finally in the end the rules just changed randomly without any announcements / mails etc.

10 stories which even if we consider one story spanning 10 pages would be just a 100 page book. Honestly, that's not something one expects from Harper Collins.

 

 

I dreaded some anamoly and here it goes. A pure gimmick of yashodhara lal getting her publicity and all. But at what cost? Innocent bloggers shown mirage and befooled. I was of the opinion that harper collins judged plots too., and i asked them verification. And still awaiting their reply. Main thing is, they wanted world class writeups for world to be awed.
Amita Kalra
from Gurgaon
10 years ago

Agree 100%. This is not a grapes-are-sour situation.. Congratulations to the top 10, I am sure they deserved it..

However, this contest seems like a flimsy advertsing gimmick to publicise Yashodhara Lal's books (and a few others) with no respect for contest rules (which anyway change without prior communication), deadlines, or the time and effort spent by so many others. Th cost of a 100-page will not be much in comparison to all publicity they have already garnered at our expense.

Seriously, HC, I am disappointed and did not expect such cheap gimmicks from a respected publishing house.

Nandini Deka
from Bombay
10 years ago

i dont understand the fuss..no anthology has more than 10-12 authors, so numbers would've anyways slashed... only thing is they'll need to expand those 10 stories, else it'll be a tiny book Laughing

 

C. Suresh
from Bangalore
10 years ago

@Nandini: Let me correct that impression that all anthologies are only 10-12 stories. Penguin, if I am not mistaken, selected much more than 10 cos the story size was 2.5k words. It is the size of the book, otherwise, that one is talking about - not the number of stories. Had it been 7-7.5k words like Fablery then 10 would do very nicely indeed. 'Uff' published 12 with 5k words. Plus, after a jumbo exercise spanning a year, a slim volume does not seem like a great output nor does mentoring only ten authors seem like sufficient return for the amount of hoopla they created.

As for expanding the story, I think that is a bit of crap. I expect a story-writing contest to select stories that read as complete stories at the time of adjudging the competition. If they need expanding, then they ought to have been sub-standard as stories as they were written. I have no doubts abt the quality of the stories selected - which means that if all of them are expanded, it would only water down the story and not add value. And, if they were going to balloon up the story post facto why not set a higher word limit to start with? Or simply select the top ten based on expanded story outlines and mentor the authors instead of asking people to write the whole story?

DS
DS
from Mumbai
10 years ago
Having read the replies above that of mine, my conjecture is that maybe the winners will be told to beef up their stories. Or were those the final stories that were submittes? Anyways Congrats to the winners, I see girls ruling the roost here too!!
Prasanna Rao
Prasanna Rao
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congratulation to all the winnersLaughing

congrats to the winners. But felt letdown, since it was said that 50 stories would be selected and only 10 were selected in the end. wish we were informed about this earlier, then maybe it would not have been such a let down.

Palak Kapadia
Palak Kapadia
from Mumbai
10 years ago

Wow! I'm in the top 10! Is this for real? 

Thank you Harper Collins and IndiBlogger for making a dream come true :D

No words to describe this feeling!

Congo's Palak
TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congrats.

Deepa Duraisamy
from Mumbai
10 years ago

Congratulations Palak!

vishwanthan iyer
from KALYAN
10 years ago

congrats!!!

 

DeePak Singh
DeePak Singh
from New Delhi
10 years ago

Thanx Renie Ravin for starting such a awesome section on IB! (Y)

Nilanjana Bose
Nilanjana Bose
from Bahrain
10 years ago

Whoop! One of my stories is on the final shortlist. Congrats to the rest of the winners!  Looking forward now to the rest of this journey.

Congo's nilanjana, 

TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congrats. 

Deepa Duraisamy
from Mumbai
10 years ago

Congratulations Nilanjana!

TF Carthick
TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congrats winners and congrats Indiblogger for making it on time.

Ranjith
Ranjith
from hyderabad
10 years ago

Congratulations to the winners. Smile

Easwar Arumugam
Easwar Arumugam
from Chennai
10 years ago

My hearty congrats to all the winners. Longing to read their stories.

Ekta Khetan
Ekta Khetan
from Mumbai
10 years ago

Congrats to the winners..my friend la femme nirvana is selected too..wow!

The result r slight disheartening for a lot of us in some ways. For eg-

1. the long delay didn't help much and the slash of results from committed 50 entries to mere 10 added to damage.

2. The concept of using 10 stories is not clear. From 250, selecting just Top 10 entries is like sending out a negative message for any upcoming initiatives by the publishing giant and even author Yashodhra who was supposedly the lead of the entire contest. The selection could be done with 50 entries as promised and in next level could have slashed to lesser no of stories.

3. Mere 10 stories do not make great sense. In that case 250 entries should not be invited esp people like me who have given 2 stories for this contest. Judges shud have asked lesser no of story considering their final target avoiding all the heartburns.

4. A lot of us suggesting that the selected story may be asked to  further expand. Naah! That would kill the concept of short stories.

There may be chance that they will use other entries later in some other book? If not, can someone confirm if our stories wud be return back to us and ownership still remains with us as we would like it that way.

Besides, friends cheer up. The results are out and nothing can be changed. I agree some of us feeling that we are taken for ride but have faith, there are other story contest as well. May be a forward on Harper Collins or Yashodhra would do good (shouldn't it be there in 1st place when the plan was changed without any communication. But how is that going to help anyways. So leave it)

One thing- when result of such contests are announced, it should be done with big fanfare. Yeh to sab thanda tha Tongue out 

TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Ideally the entries should be returned to us now. If not, it is plain stealing. So I guess we are free to use it in other. Especially folks who have held on to the lower limit of 3000 can try resubmitting the story to Rupa.

Congo's all, 

Stephen
Stephen
from Raleigh
10 years ago

Congratulations Ladies! Happy for you all!Laughing

Yo dude

Stephen
from Raleigh
10 years ago

Hello Dude!

TF Carthick
TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

I am able to see some patterns. Other the fact that all the winners are women, from the titles, they all seem to be humorous in nature. The results don't link to the ideas. So I could not validate my conjecture. 

TF Carthick
TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Also as many have said, it would have been nice if the editors had shared their thinking and rationale as well. Also it would have been nice to have the initial 50 long list as well. It would have really helped the aspiring writers. Without that this exercise has turned out an utter waste for people not selected. It would be unreasonable of course for each of the 250 entries to be given feedback. But at least knowing whether we were in the top 50 or not would have helped to know where we stand. But instead this turned out more like the usual FMCG Indi contests, with only difference being a longer wait.

Jingoistic statements (without basis) like these 10 were a cut above the rest or motherhood statements like all 250 were good but we had to select 10 that form a set or we had to select the best 10 with great difficulty etc, that we have seen in the past contests also do not help at all. 

Nandini Deka
from Bombay
10 years ago

how does it help with a top 50 list?? as long as we are not in top 10..all other lists are quite meaningless aint it??

C. Suresh
from Bangalore
10 years ago

@TF: Loved those characterisations - "Jingoistic" and "motherhood" statements :) Quite true that neither helps you know about your capability to write unless you are in the top 10. Btw, I truly cannot understand this 'set' business. I mean, if H-C had some sub-genre of Romance in mind - like Candy-floss or humor - it would have been better to have sought that in addition to 'real' in their love stories. That way people who did not write that would not have competed and others may have written in that sub-genre rather than what they did write and that would have made for a more level playing field overall. This way, they make it seem like you also have to be lucky enough to choose that sub-genre which they will publish - sort of lottery :)

@Nandini: If you think of this exercise as just another Indiblogger contest where you either get the Kindle or do not get it and it does not matter whether you were the 11th or the 250th, then yes, there is absolutely no point in a top 50 list. If you see it as an evaluation of your ability to write fiction, being in the top 50 list gives you more confidence about your ability to write fiction than not knowing exactly where you stood. Always assuming the credibility of the evaluation process, of course.

Madhu Bhardwaj
from NOIDA
10 years ago

God save the editors if they are caught in the middle of the 240 some where. :)

Congratulations to all winners, wishing them good in getting published.

Ok there were 250 submissions, may be a few less, 10 got through, means 240 fell through.  That needs a bit of an explanation from the indi-harpic team. Honestly how come that 240 fell thorough. I believe the team has a good explanation for that. I am waiting to hear it from them.

Karandeep Singh
from bangalore
10 years ago

I agree ... I think our efforts and wait of over 5 months should be acknowledged with a basic feedback on our entries or anything in that respect that can help us get better. For, not all are casual bloggers, some of us take writing a bit seriously I guess.  

TF Carthick
from Bangalore
10 years ago

I like the terms Indi-harpic. Reminds me of the toiler cleaner brand.

Rayla Noel
Rayla Noel
from Bangalore
10 years ago

Congrats all 250 fantastic writers.. U guys amaze me (&with your blogs seriously). Wish everyone here won, was great, the ideas I read. ..


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