52stories

Q. Are there any costs or fees involved with getting my story published on 52stories?
A. No, 52stories is absolutely free.

Q. Can I submit poems, essays, plays, Haiku, comic strips?
A. All of these are acceptable. We appreciate all types of writing. We just couldn’t name ourselves 52anythings. . . for obvious reasons.

Q. Can I submit photos?
A. We are not accepting photo submissions - yet. Stay tuned for more news about this.

Q. What if I need to make a change to my story after submitting it?
A. At this time, unless there is a valid legal reason for modifying a submitted work, no changes are allowed once it is published.

Q. What if I decide to un-publish it – take it off the 52stories’ site after it has been posted?
A. Send us an email and we will remove it from our site.

Q. Can I submit a change to the story after I submit it but before it gets posted?
A. We will take these on a case-by-case basis depending on the type of change, our schedules, and whether you simply need to add a comma or want to remove or add an entire paragraph. Bottom line – please make sure your stories are finished before you submit them. Treat 52stories like that strict college professor you had in English 406 who never accepted late work – remember the one with the monocle and bad toupee? That’s us.

Q. I submitted my story on time, but it didn’t show up in the next issue. What’s up?
A. Most likely, the editors simply didn’t have time to read and publish all the stories before Monday morning. If it’s Tuesday night and your story still hasn’t been published, then please send us an email, and we will investigate. On rare occasions, stories are submitted that are offensive, vulgar, or otherwise not appropriate. We reserve the right to NOT publish whatever we wish. If this is the case with your story, we will contact you via email and let you know.

Q. One week doesn’t seem long enough to write a ‘polished’ story. Can’t 52stories post all the photos for any given month at the beginning of that month so we can have more time?
A. Sorry, but the one week timeline was established for a few good reasons. One - it doesn’t allow for more than six and a half days of procrastination, two - it forces you to propel your story forward and create a finished work, and three - it disciplines you to meet a deadline, much like those imposed by publishing houses and writing-related jobs. Besides, you may only have one week, but so does everybody else in the 52stories community. Not that this is a contest, but you can look at it like you’re all playing on an even field.

Q. I wrote what I consider to be a good story for an older issue’s photo. Can I submit it? Will it be published?
A. Yes and Yes. At 52stories we realize there are many writers who strive to meet our Friday deadlines, thus realizing their goals of writing one story per week. We also realize there are plenty of writers who care less about the deadline than they do about being motivated to finish a story based on one of our pictures - no matter how long it takes. We will gladly add any stories to our archived issues of 52stories. Stories submitted after the Friday deadline will not be displayed on the home page of the Web site, but will still be available in our previous issue archives to read, rate, and critique.

Q. Will there be any contests, or other incentives for me to be more motivated to write one story every week?
A. We have dozens of great ideas for the 52stores community that we are formulating and scheduling to roll out in the coming months. The best advice we can offer is keep writing, keep submitting, and stay tuned.