INDImag – Contemporary fiction | Motivational short stories | Social stories | Short story criticism

COPY OF THE EMAIL MAILED TO ALL THE MEMBERS (Original Post Is Below ; This was added as an Update..)

Dear INDImag Members,
We could not be happier about your warm response to our Katha Sagar initiative. Thank you.
(This mail will be posted on the site to facilitate thoughts and questions members may have.)

Phase-1 At A Glance(so far..) :
Registered Members : 245
Contest Posts : 53 (we had to reject an equal number for various reasons..)
Contest Comments : 1000+
Closes : April-01 at 23.59 IST

Phase-2 Update :
(An expert panel of 1-3 panelists(non INDImag) will judge the TOP-PICKS as detailed earlier. TOP-PICKS will contain TOP-12 & WILD-CARDS(0-5) if any. TOP-12 is as determined by your RATINGs. 0-5 Posts *maybe* added by the Katha Sagar editorial team as WILDCARDS if deemed necessary. TOP-PICKS thus selected will go to Phase-2 with the votes they garnered from you ONLY ; so a WILDCARD entry will gain a berth in TOP-PICKS but will go in with the RATING you gave it ; so, safe to say, WILDCARD entries will have a lower rating than every TOP-12 story)

Dates : April – 02 to April – 06
Results : April – 07
Experts Panel : We are thrilled to have 2 people who are well known and respected in their domain agree to share their thoughts and time in Katha Sagar’s phase-2. These two distinguished individuals are doing this just for their love of this medium and we cannot begin to express how grateful and thankful we are for their time. This panel will assess their ratings and their comments on TOP-PICKS by April-06. The panel’s cumulative ratings will carry a weightage of 50% while Phase-1 ratings already assessed by you in determining the TOP-PICKS will account for the remaining 50%. We will announce the names and introduce the panel next week..

Panelist-1 : Editor of a well known(and respected) group blog.
Panelist-2 : Editor of a well known (and respected) regional language portal, a Sahitya Academy Awardee & a Writer
Panelist-3 : <YET TO CONFIRM>

Again, Thank you for your time, effort and participation and be sure to VOTE !

Be sure to subscribe to our feeds so you stay informed :

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Regards,
Madhu Rao
Katha Sagar Team
www.indimag.com

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INDImag is happy to announce it’s Katha Sagar Contest.

What is it ? It  is a short-story writing contest.

Background : For regulars at INDImag, it does not come as a surprise that we love short-stories. Stories have a way of connecting people and touching their hearts. Like a good cup of coffee, a thriller can stimulates one’s senses and linger on far after enjoying it, while at the diametric opposite end of the spectrum, a story that your grandmother narrated to you as a kid, soothed you to sleep and filled you with sweet dreams.

Stories, like clay, provide an endless medium of possibilities limited only by the author’s imagination. We want to unleash a sea of these stories. Hence Katha Sagar..

…Short Story Contest — USD$ 75/- First Prize ; $50/- Second ; $25/- Third..
Your choice of topic ; 3+ weeks to write... ; all the freedom. Submit-Vote at INDImag.

When cable TV was something you heard other countries had, when blogging was not even a thought and when Aamir Khan-Juhi Chawla had broken out into a song, pimples and stardom all for the first time in late 80s, our good old Doordarshan gave us a few programs that were a class apart. “Katha Sagar” was one such. Short stories sourced from authors around the world were crafted into bite-sized, 30 minute serials aired once a week, introducing many of us into this wonderful art — story-telling.

By borrowing the name of our inspiration, we hope to honor it and try and unleash a sea of tales.“Katha Saagar” .

Please Help Us Make It Happen..

More Details to Follow in a few days, a quick overview is as below :

What’s at stake :

• First Prize : USD $ 75/-
• Second Prize : USD $ 50/-
• Third Prize : USD $ 25/-
• 3 ‘Valuable Commenter’ Badges
  

Basic Idea :

1. Open to INDImag.com members ONLY. For registration use the top panel(top of every page on INDImag has a pull-down..).When the contest is opened, you will need to login and post the story in INDImag.You will also need to login to vote. In short, ONLY registerd users can post-vote.
2. Topic of your choice ; genre of your choice; content length (micro fiction, short-story, flash fiction) of your choice. 3 weeks to publish (any time during those 3 weeks), read and vote.
   
3. “NEW-UNPUBLISHED” Short stories only. Previously published stories are NOT allowed. The effort is to unleash a sea of creativity to come up with something new.
4. Judging will be by votes on each post (by registered users). A cumulative total of the registered users’ star-ratings (50% weightage) and votes by a panel of experts (50% weightage) will determine the winners.
5. Dates/Schedule will be announced next week.

FAQ

1. Can I submit my older posts ? – No. Unpublished, New Stories ONLY. Older published posts rob the freshness — many of our readers may have already read that post and commented..
2. Is there a limit on the number of submissions ? – Yes. 2 in all (1 if you decide to publish in 2 parts).
3. Do I need to register ? Yes. So we can automate the voting and also have a trail of who voted and how. This will allow voting to happen daily through out the 3 week duration of the competition. Rate objectively ; Your rating will be confidential.
4. Can I just vote ? Yes. Registered users can participate (submit posts) and vote as well. But if anyone wishes to JUST vote and not write, as long as the person is a registered user, he/she can.
5. If I need my friends to vote, do they need to register ? Yes. Registration needed to vote and/or participate. Commenting, however, is not subjected to any restrictions. But be sure to encourage family/friends to participate honestly — vote for your and other participants honestly based on the merit of the post, not ties to you. We will question any attempt at cartel-ization. 
   
6. Are we voting for one post only ? No. You get to vote/rate every post on a scale of 10 (10 being the highest).
   
7. When will the contest open ? The tentative dates will be published mid next week.
   
8. How long is the contest ? 3 weeks. During the 3 weeks you can post any time. You are requested to return and answer comments/critiques on your post and also read-vote the other posts. The panel of experts (who account for 50% of the weightage) WILL look at comments to see how the author clarifies his/her view point, engages his readers and handles praise, criticism.
   
9. Can I Cross-Post my entry on my blog or elsewhere ? No. For the duration of the contest you cannot cross-post your article. Once the contest is done, you are free to(you own the copyright). Given the voting happens at INDImag, it would be counterproductive to have multiple versions floating around and deal with non-publish violations from other publishers. We will also NOT allow edits past a few hours after publishing unless there was an issue in the publishing. We will NOT allow taking down of published posts.
   
10. Can I publicize my post with an excerpt ? Absolutely. Given 50% of the votes come via commenters who vote, you are encouraged to publicize and steer your readers to read and vote. Again, be sure to encourage them to participate honestly — vote for your and other participants honestly based on the merit of the post, not ties to you. We will question any attempt at cartel-ization.So you can post a blog-post that’s an excerpt with a link to your post on INDImag where they can read it in full and vote. Facebook, Twitter promotion is a YES as well…
11. Do I need to wait to register ? No. Please feel free to register at the earliest, update your profile and familiarize yourself.
12. Can I start writing my story ? Absolutely. Just do not publish it elsewhere — your blog/other sites.
13. Will I get help if I need ? For any technical difficulties involving the site, formatting etc, yes. But the content will NOT be edited for either quality, typos or grammar.
14. Any restrictions on the content ? We need the content to be suitable for all audience. We are a PG-13 site and anything not suitable for a PG-13 site will not be entertained. So explicit content, racial content, adult content is UN-WELCOME.
15. Is there any material that I can use to publicize to my audience ? Please use the banners below and link back to this post. You can SHARE this post on your FaceBook page by using the SHARE feature on ‘Support the ‘Endangered Authors’ ‘ block  after comments ..
16. Is poetry allowed ? Yes. Given, some of our greatest epics are stories conveyed poetry, we will allow short stories conveyed via poetry.
17. To be UP TO DATE PLEASE JOIN INDIMAG FaceBook Page
    
18. Subscribe to our XML or  have it delivered via Email updates.
    

Feel free to ask your questions and doubts ! Happy enrolling …

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