Looking for Valterra´s Answer (Foreign Submission *Arrival* pos *july 3rd*)

[Illuminae]

Looking for Valterra´s Answer (Foreign Submission *Arrival* pos *july 3rd*)

A Question to Anthony Valterra:

I mailed my submission today, June 21th.
The ten selected will be contacted no later than July 3rd.

At the post office, I was informed that could take from 5 to 8 work days for it to arrive in the USA.

Will my proposal really be seen? Because 8 work days from now it will be already July the 3rd.

Just remembering my proposal did get postmarked in june 21th.

Please answer, or if anyone has seen a response to this (which I didnt) please point me to it.

Thanks Anthony and everybody.

 

[RogueJK]

From the Unofficial WotC Fantasy Setting Proposal FAQ ( http://test.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14823 )

10. FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS

Q. I live in a remote, obscure or otherwise ridiculous part of the world. Can I still participate?

A. “We will accept submissions from anywhere in the world. We only ask that it be post marked by the 21st. But if you are very far away you can do us a huge favor and send it in a bit early.” (source: Enworld Message Boards)

Now, I'm not sure how they plan on working out the logistics of that, but he claims they will still be accepted...

 

[Illuminae]

Thansk roguejk, bu that wasnt really my question.

the problem is that they are contradicting themselves.

They say they will receive anything postmarked until june 21. thats ok.

But they also say that they will contact the 10 chosen no more than july 3rd.

My proposal will take up to 8 work day to reach them, and that because i sent it as priority mail.

If my postmakerd-on-june-21 proposal arrives *after* they have already chosen the 10 entries and contacted the senders, so how will mine be worth anything?

that would be very bad, if it happens.

so im looking for an official answer, because i really think that they didnt predict this point, and I dont want to be thrown out just because i dont live nearer.

 

[Artoomis]

The problem is, of course, that they set up conditions that WILL fail.

1. Postmark, anywhere in the world, by June 21.
2. Notify selectees bno later than July 3rd (8 working days).

This is what happens when you use a postmark date for a deadline - it is generally better to simply use a "it must arrive no later than..." date. Alas, that wasn't done.

On the other hand, those who postmarked on the 21st from overseas knew of these deadlines from the time the contest was announced, and so created their own problems by waiting until the very last day.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Somewhere along the line, Anthony mentioned that it would be a good idea to include your email address on the cover letter, so they could notify people by email. I think that's mentioned in the FAQ thread.

Edit: Yep, FAQ thread:

Q. Should I include my e-mail address with my cover letter?

A. "If you send an e-mail with your cover letter we will let you know by e-mail. If you do have an e-mail please do send it in your cover letter as it will really help our admin out in the contact process. If you do not have an e-mail or you did not send it in the cover letter, don't worry we will send out notice by snail mail." (source: Enworld Message Boards)

 

[Oni]

Well one solution I can imagine is that proposal arrives, perhaps even a day or to late. They look at it, if its not good enough then they toss it, if its as good as they 10 they selected and they're interested then they'll contact you and ask you to write a 10 page expanded purposal. The 10 for the next round is not a hard and fast number.

That is not to say that is what will be done, however that seems like a very logical idea.

 

[Zappo]

Yeah, I think they'll do something like what Oni said. Just to be on the safe side, I mailed mine on the 17th.

 

[mirzabah]

This is what happens when you use a postmark date for a deadline - it is generally better to simply use a "it must arrive no later than..." date. Alas, that wasn't done.

And what happens when you use an arrival date for a deadline is you get flamed by people who argue (and rightly so) that it effectively gives them anywhere from 1 day to two calendar weeks less time to get a submission completed than anyone who happens to live within a stone's throw of WotC HQ. Put bluntly, an arrival deadline discriminates heavily against people who live outside North America.

Postmark dates are the only reasonable deadline for postal submissions, but they should have allowed at least two calendar weeks.

Email would have been a much better delivery medium (or even better, a web-based form which would have given them greater control over the size and format of submissions), but that discriminates against people without internet access. Mind you, I think they've already done that anyway - AFAIK the only way you could have heard about the competition was through the internet ... or through word of mouth.

PS. I meant to add that the other problem with web-based submission is that it would likely raise the bogus submission factor to astronomical levels - the fact that postal submission requires a bit of effort tends to act as a natural BS screen.

 

[Draco Paladin]

I'm sort of worried as well. I'm from an Asian archipelago, and despite best effort to send the entry early, it ended up getting shipped on Friday. (With a June 21 postmark, whew!)

I spent the equivalent of $10 on Express mail, but I'm told it will take at least 3-5 working days to get to Washington. I'm just afraid I wasted all that money. And here, $10 is a lot of money.

Just ranting.

Good luck everyone.

I hope the enlightened Zulkir descends from Thaymount to assuage our concerns.

 

[Ranes]

I live in the UK. I heard about the contest within twenty-four hours of its announcement and soon came across AV's post regarding the favour us foreigners could do ourselves by entering early. Nevertheless, after weeks of coming up with ideas, only to discard them shortly thereafter, I only hit upon one that I felt was strong enough to be a contender on Wednesday evening (June 19th). To make matters worse, I was unable to spend any time on it at all, beyond a couple of drafts of the core ethos sentence, on Thursday 20th. Yes, I ended up hammering out the proposal over a period of two hours on the morning of Friday 21st before sending it airmail - the best I could do, given that I live in the wilderness. The most I could get was an assurance from the Post Office that it would be post-marked that day.

Obviously, I can't address your concerns authoritatively, Illuminae but for what it's worth, I think our submissions will be considered, even if they arrive on the morning of July 3rd. I'm a published writer, a former professional editor and a natural second guesser and optimist, so that's what I believe will happen.

Slightly off-topic, for those of you who think my idea can't be all that polished given that so little time was spent on it, I'll say just this: Writers rewrite and that I had time to do. But the greatest amount of time involved in any creative writing endeavour is not time spent writing, it's time spent thinking. I don't wan't to come across as being immodest though; I know my chances of success are minimal.

Entering was a great experience, as has been reading this board for posts. Good luck to you, Illuminae and to everyone else.

Ranes