Teapot Tales: Volume 4 - Now taking submissions #TeapotTales #ChaBooCha

Teapot Tales: A Collection of Extraordinary Fairy Tales (Teapot Tales: Volume 4)

Do you like to write fairy tales?

Every year we bring out a new volume of our Teapot Tales anthologies with proceeds to benefit the Chapter Book Challenge. This will be the third volume and the theme is returning to fairy tales.

The stories are flash fiction (minimum word count 300 words/maximum word count 1,000 words) and are to either be a new take on an old fairy tale (sometimes called twisted fairy tales or fractured fairy tales) or completely new fairy tales.

Submissions are only open to Chapter Book Challenge members (it's free to join and the sign-up sheet is on the ChaBooCha blog). Previous Teapot Tales anthologies are "Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unique Fairy Tales" (Teapot Tales: Volume 1), "Teapot Tales: Pirates, Mermaids and Monsters of the Sea" (Teapot Tales: Volume 2), and Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unusual Fairy Tales (Teapot Tales: Volume 4). The anthologies are sold through Amazon, but will be expanding to other retail outlets. All authors retain the copyrights to their stories to publish in their own collections or on their own websites. Up to three stories may be submitted. Artwork (line drawings) is also accepted.

All work must be your own.

Please include a one-paragraph, third-person author bio with your submission. Website links to your sites are allowed within reason.

Deadline for story submissions (and artwork): August 31st, 2016

Teapot Tales: A Collection of Extraordinary Fairy Tales (Volume 4) #TeapotTales

Teapot Tales: A Collection of Extraordinary Fairy Tales (Teapot Tales: Volume 4)

Do you like to write fairy tales?

Every year we bring out a new volume of our Teapot Tales anthologies with proceeds to benefit the Chapter Book Challenge. This will be the fourth volume and the theme is returning to fairy tales.

The stories are flash fiction (minimum word count 300 words/maximum word count 1,000 words) and are to either be a new take on an old fairy tale (sometimes called twisted fairy tales or fractured fairy tales) or completely new fairy tales.

Submissions are only open to Chapter Book Challenge members (it's free to join and the sign-up sheet is on the ChaBooCha blog). Previous Teapot Tales anthologies are "Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unique Fairy Tales" (Teapot Tales: Volume 1), "Teapot Tales: Pirates, Mermaids and Monsters of the Sea" (Teapot Tales: Volume 2) and Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unusual Fairy Tales (Teapot Tales: Volume 3). The anthologies are sold through Amazon, but will be expanding to other retail outlets. All authors retain the copyrights to their stories to publish in their own collections or on their own websites. Up to four stories may be submitted. Artwork (line drawings) is also accepted.

We also run a competition each year for the book cover creation. If you'd like to create a cover for consideration in the competition, the title needs to say "Teapot Tales" in large print and "A Collection of Extraordinary Fairy Tales" in smaller print. Keep in mind that the title needs to be able to be read even when the book cover is seen in thumbnail size. ChaBooCha members vote on the cover. Covers need to be in by August 31st, to be voted on within a week of that date. The winner of the competition will have their cover used for the anthology and, within the anthology, will get credit for creating the cover.

All work must be your own.

Deadline for story submissions (and artwork): August 31st, 2016

Teapot Tales Volume 3 Table of Contents #TeapotTales #TT3

There are 13 contributing authors and a total of 25 stories in this edition of the Teapot Tales anthologies.  If you are one of the contributing authors, please check that your name is spelled correctly and that your story title is correct. 

Table of Contents

The Midnight Feast by Bron Rauk-Mitchell

The Singers by Brenda A. Harris

Aunt Mabel and the Bare Truth by Indigo Phoenix

Maya and the Prince by Jo Hart

The Girl of Legend by Melissa Gijsbers

Snow Dancer by Rebecca Fyfe

The Three Dogs by Ashley Howland

The Fae Train by Angelica Fyfe

A Bird for Lucy by Theresa Nielsen

Panpipe Moon by Siobhan O'Neill

The Boy with No Story by Deirdre Sheridan Englehart

Guardian by Kayla Fyfe

The Magick of Teddy Bears by Bron Rauk-Mitchell

The Three Little Pigs by Melissa Gijsbers

Wood Sprite by Rebecca Fyfe

Dragon's Blood by Bron Rauk-Mitchell

The Magical Kind by Robert Fyfe

The Pygmy Hippo with the Big Heart by Ashley Howland

The Apple by Bron Rauk-Mitchell

The Piano Teacher by Theresa Neilson

Anna's Wolves by Rebecca Fyfe

The Lonely Dragon by Bron Rauk-Mitchell

Come Dance with Us by Rebecca Fyfe

Introducing Sunny the Faerie Mouse by Bron Rauk-Mitchell
The Magic of the Faeries by Rebecca Fyfe

Teapot Tales: Volume 3 cover reveal! #TeapotTales #TT3

Here's the promised cover reveal for "Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unusual Fairy Tales (Volume 3)."

I took all of the votes off of Facebook, through e-mail and here in the comments and totalled them together.

The final vote was:

#1 – 1 votes

#2 – 4 votes

#3 – 0 votes

#4 – 6 votes

#5 – 6 votes

That left me with the tie-breaking vote. This was hard for me, because I actually believe very strongly that the first 3 covers were closer in style to the original two Teapot Tales anthologies, so I am kind of sad that none of them won the vote. So, as the vote was between the last two covers, #4 and #5, I decided to take many things into consideration, including aesthetics, fitting in with previous anthologies styles, and how the colour of the background will look when printed. #5 has the trees which are more like previous anthology covers, BUT the colour was much brighter and glaring than previous covers, which had more muted colours. (Yes, I printed the two covers up to see how they'd look on glossy paper.) In the end, after much consideration, I voted for:

#4

So that means that the new cover for Teapot Tales volume 3 is:

I'm still a little bit torn because we had an equal number of votes between each. (I really thought one would win out over the other.)

I was thinking that I could make an extra anthology as an extended version with a couple of extra stories in it and some extra pictures, using one of the covers, while using the other for the non-extended version. (That would mean more work for me though, as we have very few pictures at the moment!)

I'd love everyone's thoughts on this. If you voted for the #5, did you have your heart set on it? Would you like an extended version to be available, so that both covers could be used?

2014 Story Advent Calendar Blog Hop

If you join the blog hop and add a story to the advent calendar, please feel free to use this picture on your post, if you need a picture.

So, here in the UK, it's a tradition to get your children an advent calender so that each day, from the first of December through Christmas, they can open the prize for that day. Most of the advent calendars are chocolate ones, with a differently-shaped chocolate for each day, but some advent calendars are more adventurous.

Last year, Melusine Muse Press published an anthology of short holiday stories a little bit before Christmas, called Jingle Bells: Tales of Holiday Spirit from Around the World." There will be no holiday anthology this year. However, instead of chocolate advent calendars, which only help our children's teeth to rot, we are going to provide kids with a story advent calendar this year.

A bunch of authors are getting together to write stories, a short story for each day of the advent calendar. This means that for your children's advent calendar surprise, they can have something truly wonderful - a completely new story, read to them by you.

Authors can write more than one story. We need 25 stories. When we reach 25 stories, we will be done.

If you are writing a story for the Story Advent Calendar, you will need to post the story to your blog and then link the blog post (the specific post - NOT just the blog itself) to the link-up. You should also copy and paste the "linky" script into your blog at the end of your post so that people can follow on and find the other stories in the calendar.

If you do not have a blog, you may e-mail the story to me, along with your name and the title of the story and I will post it into either this blog or one of my other blogs and link it up for you. (I can be e-mailed at Rebecca (at) Fyfe (dot) net.)

Limit your story's word count to between 300 and 1,000 words.

We will be writing fairy tales. If you want to write holiday-themed fairy tales or non-holiday-themed fairy tales, the choice is yours.

Add the link to your post.

Aim your stories at kids aged 6 to 13.

Have fun with it!

Teapot Tales - Vote for our book cover! #ChaBooChaAnth

I am posting all of the submissions I received for the book cover for the fairy tale anthology. It's up to you all to vote on which one you like best. I will not include names with the submissions, so no one can claim "friend voting." (Not that any of you would actually do that!) Also, I am not voting unless we need a tie breaker.

We have until midnight GMT tomorrow night to vote. Vote by stating which one you want as the cover in the comments. Each one will be given a number and you vote for the number you like best. Please ignore any titles in the pieces up for voting as some of these were sent in before we had chosen a title, so people left it as "title" or put a sample title in. Whichever one you choose will have the correct title in the finished product.

#1:

*****

#2: 

*****

#3:

*****

#4:

 

*****

#5:  

*****

#6: (This one is a concept cover, not the finished piece.)

*****

#7:

So there you have it. You have seven covers to vote on and a limited amount of time to do the voting. So get voting! I can't wait to see what the final cover is going to be!