About the Caferati Listings newsletter

Note: The original announcement has been archived here for reference.

We get a lot of requests to help publicise contests and submissions to anthologies, list job openings and stuff like that. We used to post them to our forum, or forward them to our local groups. This got tedious, done piecemeal. So we decided to create a separate newsletter devoted to just that task.

Caferati Listings sends out information about interesting writing opportunities, paid and unpaid (provided we think they’re cool) and events.
  These include, but are not restricted to:
Writing contests, online or in print.
Calls For Submissions from publishing houses and the media, online or in print.
Information on literary events and festivals that seek participation from outside their own geographical area.
Work opportunities for writers, full-time, part-time, freelance, retainer-based or one-off assignments.

Subscribe

Caferati Listings goes out via Google Groups and Yahoo!Groups. The Google Groups archives go back to the first mailing in October 2006, but the Yahoo! version, a later addition, only has archives from after August 2008 onwards.

Frequency

Emails to these lists never exceed one a week. More often than not, we send out a comprehensive monthly mail, unless something very juicy, but with a very short deadline crops up.

On either version, you can also choose not to receive any emails (but then you’d lose all the luverly HTML formatting that email subscribers get), and only visit the group’s home page whenever you please. (Just remember to bookmark it, hm?) You can adjust those settings when you sign up, or later, by visiting the group’s page.

Privacy

Caferati’s editors are the only ones who will have access to the email address you use to subscribe to Caferati Listings.

We will never sell, rent or lend this list to any other person or organisation.

Submissions to Caferati Listings

You are invited, nay, urged, to send in information about contests, events, writing opportunities, calls for submissions, literature festivals and the like.

You need not be the person behind whatever it is you’re submitting. You’re welcome to send us tip-offs and links as well. In the case of tip-offs, we will credit the first person to send in a particular item. Like so: Via: Salman Naipaul, http://your URL.com (if you send us one). Please let us know if you do not want to be credited for some reason.

Mail editors AT caferati DOT com, and use the words For Listings - Submission or For Listings - Tip in the subject line to ensure you get past our spam filters. (Do not mail the group directly. It is, as we said, a one-way mailing list, so your mail won’t reach us or Caferati Listings subscribers.)

Make your submission brief, and do include URLs where those interested can get more info.

Ideal submission

Think about how much information you, as a writer, would like to have, and let that guide you. That said, here’s what we consider an ideal submission.

1. Name of event or opportunity
2. Brief explanation
3. Rewards / Remuneration
Is there a prize for the contest? Cash or kind?
Is a retainer or salary or fee being offered for a job or submission request?
Employers, try and avoid terms like competitive rates and on par with industry standards. Do remember that a newbie may have no clue what a competitive salary or an industry average is.
For unpaid writing opportunities, please always state why you think the opportunity is worth the bother.
4. Conditions, restrictions, requirements
If there is any kind of entry, admission or application fee, please state that clearly.
Likewise with any other restrictions or conditions.
For paid job opportunities, please state clearly the mandatory or preferred experience, qualifications and/or certifications, and whether the opening is in a specific city only.
Do include, ideally, a name and contact details for reader queries.
5. URL for more information, if necessary
If you’re including a more information URL, please give us a direct link to the relevant page or permalink.
Don’t send us a parent site site link and expect us, or our readers, to go search. If you’re expecting us to hunt for details and then list your submission, we have two words for you. Day. Jobs.
6. Contact information, preferred form of submission and deadline.
Email, snailmail, phone call, web form, walk in and see you?
Any particular format wanted?
Are attachments in emails okay?
7. Your name and URL
We like to give credit where credit is due. We’ll happily link to your blog, personal home page or user profile page.

Conditions for Submissions to Caferati Listings

Do NOT send us email with attachments. We won’t open them.

Caferati’s editors reserve the right to refuse to include your submission, and to not give you any reasons for refusal.

Filthy lucre

Listing events or opportunities will be free for as long as we can manage it. However, if this list becomes insanely popular (we wish!), and begins to take up large amounts of the time we set aside to earn our livings, we may consider charging for submissions, particularly where the person or organisation making the submission stands to make money. This will be with plenty of advance notice. And if we do so, paid submissions will be in a separate, clearly marked section.

Strictly local events and opportunties

For strictly local writing-related events and opportunities, please check if we have your city covered in our list of local newsgroups (the list is on the sidebar), and subscribe to one of those. These newsgroups are primarily used to plan Caferati’s own local read-meets, but information about other writing-related events and opportunities are very welcome.

Just to make this clear, you don’t have to be a Caferati member to subscribe to Caferati Listings. Of course, for those of you who aren’t, we would be thrilled to see you on our free Forum , currently hosted on Ryze.