Raising Money for WARCHILD

Remember the fun that was Shaggy Blog Stories?

Well now Peach is co-organising a new project to raise money for WARCHILD.

Ta to Mike for this direction.

One of the things that a lot of us love about blogging is that we share experiences. We may not meet or even see our fellow bloggers but we feel we know them. For many of us it's an important part of feeling connected, almost like having another support system. Recently I tagged some bloggers on memes requiring a bit more info on who they were and what they felt and what I read really moved me. They made me wish I could pay for their writing, to thank them for sharing, to give them something for giving me their words on their personal stories.

From that thought, and with the help of a small team (Sarah from He Loves Me Not, Ariel from From Fuck Up To Fab, Ms R from Woman of Experience and Vi from Village Secrets) we've come up with a plan! We're putting together a book for WARCHILD written by bloggers and here's where you come in:

We would like you to submit (to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk) a written piece about something you've been through from any aspect of your life that you want to share. It can literally be about anything: your relationships, your past, a road not taken, being a parent, an illness or your regrets etc. We've called it "You're Not The Only One" to reflect the camaraderie of blogging.


Proceeds will go to WARCHILD and, blatantly following in the same fashion as Troubled Diva (Mike Atkinson)'s Shaggy Blog Stories, we will be publishing it through www.lulu.com. This is a no upfront fee internet publishing site who will take £4.70 per book sold if we make it no longer than 200 pages. We're pricing the book at £9 so £4.30 will go to straight to the charity. Because the cost lulu.com takes goes up according to how many pages we want published, we do have to stick to the 200 page limit so we can't guarantee you'll get your submission in for sure and the absolute maximum length for submission is 1500 words (but we’d rather not have too many at that length. In fact you may stand more chance if your piece is on the less wordy side).

WARCHILD is a uk based charity but it helps children all over the world, so we'd like as many submissions from as many places as possible

A small note, we'd prefer it if you submit stories you've not published outside the blogworld, i.e a piece from your own site is great, but not from a previously published hard copy book, lulu or otherwise; that makes this exclusive.

To summarise:

You must be a blogger with a live blog
It must be about something you've been through, amusing or serious or any style you like.
You can submit in your blogname and remain anonymous, or not, up to you.
It can't be something previously published outside the blogworld, but anything from your blog, or something entirely new, is fine.
Try to keep below 1500 words.
You must pimp the book on your site and buy it if you make a submission to be in it!
Please LINK BACK TO THIS POST to spread the word!


NEW DEADLINE IS 9th MARCH 2008 for submissions.
Send your submissions to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk

A good idea I think...