Jukebox Fanworks Exchange

Hello! I am so excited to start Jukebox up again for this year. I can't believe it's the fifth year already.

Journal style changes

You may notice that both this community and the LiveJournal community look a little different. With a bit of help, I re-jigged the theme and colours and added link lists. My hope is that the new design is a) more legible and useful, b) more consistent across the two communities, and c) a little prettier (though that is a very distant third). I'm happy to take further feedback; otherwise, if you add ?style=mine to the end of a URL in this comm, it'll show you the page in your own journal style. Maybe there'll be a sticky post with a nice picture later.

Currently, the links list includes the collection, the tag set, and the schedule; later I'll add other things like the canons, the letters post, and the beta post. Suggestions welcome. What makes the community easy to use for you?

Rule changes

Small changes for this year include:
Art minimum
I tweaked this to remove the pixel requirements, which didn't really work last year, and specify that if you are submitting graphics, at least 3 separate pieces are required; otherwise, please just ensure that the work is checked for obvious problems (don't draw on lined paper, make sure you have a reliable scanner or camera, check resolution, etc) and is complete. EDIT: Now changed to: collages, manips, and similar graphics may be given as treats to people who are open to them, but may not be used to fulfil an assignment.

Nominations limit
Last year I allowed 8 nominations; I'd prefer to make it 7 this year. That is solely because it seems to take around the same number of total hours for me to put together the link tables as there are nominations per participant. Weird, I know, but it's consistent. I can commit to 7 hours in one day to put the tables together, but 8 was stretching it and I don't want to delay sign-ups. If this is a large disappointment to y'all, I'll reconsider.

Requests limit
Last year you could request 3-8 pieces of music. It occurs to me that 8 is a bit arbitrary since AO3 goes up to 10 easily. Does anyone want me to change the possible request maximum to 10? The minimum will not change.

Pinch hits
Are you all happy with me continuing to post them to the community?

Any other feedback is welcome.

Brainstorming

Since nominations will open on Friday (approximately), please use this post and its Dreamwidth equivalent to share what you're thinking of nominating! This is an optional part of the exchange and so is nominating, but it's a good way to get ideas, see if other people are excited about your music choices - or at the very least, bring your favourite music to other people's attention.

This post on LJ

While I'm working on data entry...


This year there is an option to offer podfic, and to create both a text and a recording for a gift.

In case anyone would like to team up with another participant to either write or record, perhaps you can indicate your interest on this post, or the equivalent LiveJournal post. If discussing the specifics of what you're offering, please keep that to PM or email or similar rather than public comments.

If you put podfic in your offers and are assigned it, you have primary responsibility (an assignment can only be assigned to one AO3 account unless I do weird things with matching I don't really want to do). Also, I cannot myself guarantee you a writing or a recording partner, or vouch for people, since podfic is mostly a mystery to me.

However, as a moderator, I will try to help if you let me know of problems.

If you do decide to create podfic for an assignment and to work with a partner, I'd appreciate you letting me know who is on your team and having a way to contact them.


This post is also on LiveJournal.

Hello!

I'm a little stuck on two nominated pieces. Could the nominator please get in touch with me, either by commenting here or by emailing [email protected] ?

1. Rainbow Connection - Various (Song)

Is this a specific medley version with various artists, or do you mean you don't care which cover you get? (A specific version is preferred, but negotiable.)


2. My brother my enemy - Sassafrass Singers (Song)

I love the lyrics, but I'm not sure this song stands on its own and can be understood without further knowledge of Norse mythology. Nominator, what did you have in mind? Other people are welcome to chime in - this doesn't seem like a hard-and-fast case to me.



PS - If you nominate something with just its title and artist, I'm going to assume you mean (Song) and will approve accordingly. Please let me know if your nomination goes through in a form you did not intend.

Hello! It is not quite Jukebox time again, but nearly!

Schedule
This is what I'm thinking for Jukebox's 2016 schedule.

Brainstorming post: before 15 March
Nominations: 18-26 March
Sign-ups: 28 March to 6 April
Assignments due: Sat 28 May
Works go live: Sat 4 June
Creators are revealed: Wed 8 June

Unless people point out significant problems with these dates, I don't plan to adjust any of them by more than a day in the final schedule. (For example, I may make go-live 3 June rather than 4 June.) These dates are mostly geared to my public holiday schedule, allowing me to put together the table of songs over Easter weekend, and to read works over Queen's Birthday Weekend. I realise that some periods of participant activity overlap religious dates - please let me know if you think that the overlap isn't workable.

Structure of requests & types of media
Art and podfic seemed to go pretty well last year, and did not cause any additional difficulty for pinch hits. Because of this, I am inclined to relax the rules about media in your offers and requests. You can request or offer whatever combination you want. If you want to request only podfic, you can. If you want to request only art, you can. I suspect that many participants willl want to continue asking for & offering fic only. That's fine too.

I don't plan to include vids.

More about podfic
My rules for podfic were complicated last year. Hagar_972, in particular, persuaded me that instead of my previous system, which went:

-Sign up offering (or requesting) "No Fandom"
-Create (or request) a podfic out of the existing pool of song-based fic with appropriate permissions, possibly to a theme suggested by the recipient

it would make more sense for a podfic gift to consist of 1 new story, in both written and podficced form, so that you would request and offer it as follows:

-Sign up offering songs or music videos from the tag set, and the freeform tag "podfic"
-Create (either by yourself or as part of a team) a story for that song or music video, with a minimum of 500 words, both written and recorded. (The minimum length for a fic-only gift would still be 1,000 words.)
-A writing/podficcing team counts as one participant, in the sense that such a team would receive one gift, not one per person.

Would you all prefer that? AND, if we switched to that, for podfic, should I keep the no-fandom version from last year's rules? I'm inclined to ditch it - for matching, anyway; you could still indicate in your prompts/letter that you'd be open to a podfic of an existing story as a gift.

Visibility of requests
More and more exchanges are making requests visible from the moment you sign up. I am tempted to do this for Jukebox - especially since it could be very useful to know which media people are requesting for their songs & music videos. How do people feel about that?



Please let me know any thoughts you have, or just let me know if what I have written isn't clear. You don't have to have participated before to have a say - though of course I'm very glad to hear from previous participants.

Finally and at last. Sorry for the delay.

Sign-up form | Dates, rules, and FAQ | Tag set | Canons ordered by artist | Canons ordered by song title | Podfic permission post


I have made some changes to the way the fest runs this year, so please read carefully before signing up.

You have 3-10 offers, and 3-8 requests.

Offers
You need to tag each of your offers with 'Podfic' or 'Fanfiction' or 'Art'. You can also tag an offer with both 'Fic' and 'Art'.

If you select Fic or Art or both, you need to enter a song from the tag set for your canon.

If you are offering podfic, enter 'No Fandom' where the form asks you for a fandom. Please also write some details in the Optional Details box to help me match you with someone who wants podfic.

If you are offering art or fanfiction for any particular song, please do not use the Optional Details box for your offers. I will only use those details to match podfic artists & their recipients.


Requests
You need to tag each of your requests with 'Podfic' or 'Fanfiction' or 'Art'. You can also tag a request with both 'Fic' and 'Art'. If you tag Podfic, you need to enter 'No Fandom' for the canon. If you select Fic or Art or both, you need to enter a song from the tag set for your canon.

Feel free to use the Description box to give your author/artist/podfic artist some prompts. Keep in mind that if you are asking for podfic, your podfic artist has a limited selection of works to choose from. You can suggest themes and types of story, or suggest specific works you would like to receive as a podfic, but your podfic artist may not follow those exactly.

Please let your author, artist, or podfic artist know of anything you really do not want to receive in your gift. Your gift creator is obliged to follow those preferences.


I have made separate posts for Dear Creator letters, which are an optional way to post your prompts outside AO3 and give your gift creator more detail about what you would like.


In general
If anyone has any questions about the changes to the sign-up form, or if you have any tips for people to consider when writing fanart, fanfiction, or podfic prompts, please comment.

As with all Jukebox posts, this post is mirrored on LiveJournal.

This year's Jukebox includes podfics, for the first time. A condition of podfic gifted as part of this exchange is that the fic's author must have given permission for the story to be recorded.

It seems like it might be useful to have a directory of eligible stories, as a starting point for podfic artists.

So: If you have written stories based on songs, and you are willing for these stories to be recorded as podfics, please comment here or on LiveJournal.

Required information:
-Your author name
-Where your works are found
-The type of permission granted (blanket permission? Just for this exchange? Just for this exchange in 2015?)

Also helpful information:
-Which of your stories are eligible
-The songs they are based on
-The wordcount of the stories.


If you are aware of authors who have written stories about songs and who have permission statements that would allow recording, feel free to mention them and give a link. Please, however, make it clear whether you're speaking for yourself or making note of someone else's permissions.


People who have never participated in Jukebox and have no intention of doing so in future are welcome to comment here. This is not limited to participants. If you're not otherwise involved in the exchange, but you think the idea of your story being podficced, as a gift to someone else, is cool: by all means, let us know what you've written.

( Here is a rough list of all comments so far )

The comments will stay open, and I will continue updating the list as far along as 3 weeks before assignment deadline.

Hello!

FIRST: the full Jukebox 2015 schedule is under the cut.

( Schedule )


SECOND: I am going to open the challenge to podfic artists and visual artists this year.

Here's how it's going to work.

For visual artists:
Visual artists will be required to create one work of minimum 700x700 pixels, or up to three smaller pieces that add to a similar total area. The work must be original and complete.

The work that an artist creates must be a response to their recipient's prompt for a song or music video that is part of this year's tag set. (Same requirement as for writers.)


For podfic artists
Podfic artists must record a story that is based on a song or music video. It must be a minimum of 1,000 words in length. The writer must have given permission for their story to be recorded (either blanket permission, or permission specific to this exchange).

Now the complicated part.

It doesn't make sense to me to match podfic artists & recipients on specific fandoms, because there aren't enough existing stories about songs. So matching is going to have to work more loosely.

Recipients are encouraged to list specific stories that they are interested in receiving as a podfic. However, podfic artists are encouraged to see these as suggestions, rather than restrictions. Recipients are not guaranteed to get a specific story they have requested as a podfic.

Recipients are strongly encouraged to list themes and genres that they're interested in. Podfic artists should keep these in mind when choosing a story to record. Prompts like, "I love stories about ghosts and fairies, and similar supernatural creatures," or "I like stories grounded in the real world - no supernatural elements please," or "I'd prefer slash if possible," or "I'd prefer a story with a female protagonist," are encouraged.

Podfic artists are also encouraged to list themes they are fond of/ not fond of, so that I can tweak matches to try to ensure that artists & recipients have some point in common, or at least not diametrically opposite taste.

Podfic artists must abide by their recipients' Do-Not-Wants.


THIRD: I am going to structure offers and requests in the following manner.

-You can offer podfic only
-You can offer art only
-You can offer fanfic only
-Or you can offer any combination of the above.

-You can request fic only
-You can request fic or art
-You can request fic or podfic
-You can request fic or podfic or art
-HOWEVER, your requests must include a fic request. That is, you cannot request art only, podfic only, or podfic or art only.

(Note: this year I am increasing the maximum number of requests to 8.)

I realise that that could be disappointing to visual artists who only want to receive visual art, or podfic artists, ditto. I have two reasons for this restriction:

-As a mod, I want to be the final line of defense, so to speak, for last minute pinch hits, and fic is the only type of gift I can produce.

-This is the first year of including other media. I see the requirement of a fic request as an intermediary step that allows me some safeguards - especially in matching, because I anticipate that the majority of people will sign up to write.

Finally...
I'm still pondering the problem of anon periods, which I understand have a different impact on visual and podfic artists from their impact on writers. Suggestions welcome.

These rules are open for discussion for a few days - please, please feel free to comment! - and then I will consolidate them into an edited FAQ.

I could use some help with promotional materials. If anyone's willing to help make banners and promote Jukebox on Tumblr, for example, that'd be neat. I am willing to trade beta services? :)

I will put up a brainstorming post at some point around March 20.

I posted here (DW) and here (LJ) to ask for feedback on the dates for Jukebox 2014 and whether art should be included. Thank you for your contributions - more are welcome there. I'll post my decision on dates and art at the end of this week (approx Jan 12), and that should be the last post I make until the exchange runs. The votes currently favour schedule 2.

Two issues came up in the comments, and I'd like to invite further feedback on those.

One: Some of you mentioned that you prefer not to have anon periods where the stories but not the authors are revealed. A few others chimed in to say you do like anon periods. I personally like them, but since as the moderator I know who wrote what, I realise that's moot. My current plan is to have an anon period this year, but make it much shorter than it was last year - probably 5 days. Let me know if that's a useful compromise.

Two: I floated the idea of art fills - and a couple of people raised the point that I need to define what is meant by acceptable art. Um. As I think you can tell from the design of the comms - ^!^ - I do not have artistic skill myself. Checking f_fa's archives and some other exchanges' guidelines suggests the following:

Art must be:
-complete
-a single piece between 500 and 2000 pixels in either dimension or a set of 3+ smaller pieces

Media could include
-images physically drawn & scanned
-images created with graphic programs

Art would be posted by finding a place to host the final product and embedding your fill in a work posted to AO3, since AO3 does not host art itself.

I want to also say that manipulated images are acceptable, but I have no idea how to define "you have to know what you're doing and be able to use pretty layering things and have a cool idea you want to convey" vs. "No heads pasted on and weird collages." (collages have their place! But I'm not sure people agree that they're reliably equal to a 1,000-word story.)

If anyone could point me in the direction of a more detailed set of guidelines, I'd be grateful.

However, as I post this, 1 person has said they'd give art (but only as treats), and 6 people have said they'd request art (but with caveats), so I suspect we will not try art this year.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

Authors are now visible for all stories. Here's the collection again: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Jukebox2013

Thank you again for participating. I had a great time. I'm still reading through the collection.


I plan to run this challenge again, so I'd appreciate feedback, on what worked for you and didn't. (Anonymous comments are still enabled.)

Here are a couple of things I think I might change:

• The dates. This has run up closer to Yuletide than I was anticipating. I was also participating in hhertzof's Exchange at Fic Corner challenge, which hhertzof says she will run again next year in July-August-September. Because of this, I'm thinking of shifting Jukebox 2014 to February-March-April (ensuring the writing time doesn't overlap too much with Purimgifts) or April-May-June (though that overlaps a bit with Not Prime Time).


• The beta reading mailing list. I'm not sure that quite worked (thoughts, anyone?). Especially, it seems a bit silly for me to be playing relay like that when I'm in such a different time zone to most other people - I suspect it decreased, rather than increasing, efficiency. (I don't think this was a problem for pinch hitting, though, since I could decide when to send emails out.)


• What fanworks are included. Currently, I don't have a strong idea about how to include podcasts or fanvids - or whether these make sense to include. But I am interested in fanart. So, question: would other people be interested in either offering or requesting art fills for song prompts?


• The definition of a song. There are many discrete pieces of music without lyrics where the creators, performers, and audience can agree on the shape of the story being told. (Programmatic music being one branch of this.) Would you be interested in offering or requesting music of this type? And if you are, could you help me come up with an appropriate definition?



Other things I'd love to get discussion on: was writing for a song outside your comfort zone, or not? Did the song you wrote for remind you of other particular songs? (I ended up buying three songs in iTunes based on other people's nominations.) Are there un-filled prompts that you especially wish had been written as well?

Since one kind person has already contacted me to ask about this, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on a pinch hit list.

Pinch hitters are writers who step in and take extra assignments when the original writer, for whatever reason, has defaulted. They also help fill the gaps if the initial matching process leaves a few people at loose ends (some with no possible writers, some with no possible unique recipients).

When a pinch hit needs to be claimed, I'll send an email around. I will then distribute the assignment to someone who's asked for it - probably the first claimant, but that will depend on whether they're already working on a pinch hit. ^!^ I will also email you all when the pinch hit has been claimed. If you put your hand up for a story, you'll either see a reply from me saying it's yours, or a general note, a bit later, to say that the pinch hit was claimed (and therefore, that it didn't go to you).

If you would like to have the option of pinch hitting for the exchange, please comment here with your email address and your AO3 name. I have screened the comments so that your email address will only be visible to me.

Exchanges tend to need pinch hitters. I am very grateful for all expressions of interest.