After long months of disccusion in the Lounge SeniorBatavianHorse has finally released Volume 1 of the AAR Anthology.
This anthology is the first of its kind and aims to widen the scope of the AARs audience into the wider public. Containing work from many well-known AARtists on TWC ranging from robinzx's Takeda AAR to la coupe's Eastern Jewel in a Western World this anthology has collaborated some of TWC greatest of works into one book.
We now need you! The anthology is available to download free from Smashwords here. Please download it, read it, and then review it on the Smashwords site. It is available in a wide range of e-book formats, so no matter what device you own you'll be able to read. And if you don't you can also read it online and as a PDF - so there is no excuses!
This is just the start, and hopefully it'll move on to bigger and better things. If you would like your AAR to feature in Volume 2 please view the following posts and add.
Please advertise this anyway you can, and if you are gifted with the possession of artistic skills I'm sure we'd love you to make a few signatures etc.
ybbon66 has encouraged me to discuss the following with you all -
I have been exploring the world of epublishing recently and now have several of my plays uploaded to a site called Smashwords. This was a necessary step to both see how epublishing worked and also see what kind of marketing is needed.
Now that the plays have been approved formatting-wise for distribution to Smashword's premium sites (Barnes and Noble, Apple, Diesel and so on), I moved to the next stage (no pun intended!) which was to see if there was an opportunity to publish some of my AARs in a serial novella format. 'The Nowhere Legion - Book One' is now uploaded and available while awaiting approval for submission to the premium sites. My plan is to launch five Books of The Nowhere Legion and make it a serialised novella.
This led to another idea:
namely: An Anthology AAR in serialised format epublished at Smashworlds.
What I am envisaging here is a selection of multiple AARs (say five or six) of sufficient quality to be included in a serial anthology. So that a reader would download Book One and read the first chapters of - say - five or six AARs. Book Two would carry on the AARs in sequence - and so on with Books Three and Four, etc.
These AARs would need to be either already finished and sufficently advanced so that there is enough material to cover several Books. Also these would need to be an AAR strong enough to stand alone without supporting pics - I doubt we could include these for legal reasons.
Requirements: each author who would wish to submit an AAR would need to email me the AAR's first section in Word Doc only, an introduction, and also ensure that it is all proof-read and formatted.
Work: I will arrange the submitted pieces in whatever order I see fit so that they compliment eachother and then upload for Smashwords to convert. I will set up a special TWC Author's page. Any formatting problems, I will edit at source myself. It is not too complicated. I will also create the main cover pic and write a short editor's introduction.
Issues: do we charge a price? Or make it free? or make it donation only? If it is priced, how do we share out the profits? How do we as a community select the AARs? Can we even launch such a venture? If we do charge, should the profits go to the TWC site as a donation for hosting the AARs in the first place?
Anyway, these are some thoughts that have been running around in my head! It may be that the idea is inappropriate and that there are neither enough good AARs to fit the Anthology or even indeed authors willing to submit those that are.
Behind all this I suppose is the general idea of celebrating the whole TWC AAR community and also to introduce a wider readership to the AAR genre - a valid and exciting writing/reading community in itself!
EDIT:
CONFIRMED AARTISTS IN VOLUME ONE 'A TIGER'S LEAP':
will be updated as and when other AARtists confirm!
Writer AAR Status (End of April Deadline)
SeniorBatavianHorse - (editor and publisher)
Juvenal - Spite of Severus - on editor's desk (oed)
McScottish - Serving Your Oppressor - on editor's desk (oed)
Thokran - Heaven's Descent - on editor's desk (oed)
robinzx - Takeda - on editor's desk (oed)
Schrodinger - Restoring Rome - on editor's desk (oed)
la coupe est pleine - An Eastern Jewel in a Western World - on editor's desk (oed)
Other AARtists to join if desired throughout April.
Please PM me if you wish to be included in this Anthology and you feel you fit the submission requirements!