Putting the book together right now and making good progress, though I think we are still waiting on replies from two fic authors. Once the book data is forwarded to the printer (in the next few days), you won’t be able to fix any mistakes, so keep that in mind.
Also calculating costs. The book will likely cost $14 flat for everyone (this already includes shipping!). One copy runs at $9.40 and international shipping at about $4.30 - I’m based in Germany - rounding up those 30 cent to make up for things such as PayPal fees and all (I didn’t calculate with packaging and there’s a surprise in the book I paid for myself which also isn’t included in the price, so no, I’m not making any profit; quite the opposite :D). Saves me the hassle of calculating shipping costs individually for everyone too, so I hope this is agreeable. If not, drop me a line.
The book will have about 70 pages, and copies will be reserved for the contributors once I open up orders; but otherwise it will be first come, first serve. When the 60 copies are paid for and sent out, there will be no more, so always keep an eye on the Fanbook Tumblr and/or the LJ community.
Thanks to everyone who made submissions to the fanbook!
I’ve now read over all of the fic submissions closely and I’ve emailed responses to all of them. If you submitted a fic, please check your email; you may need to make corrections to your fic, and we’d like to get all the final text sorted out as soon as possible. If you haven’t received a response, check your junkmail, and then comment here if you still can’t find it.
Once you’ve made corrections, submit them to Saph at mgsfanbook2012@googlemail.com and cc myself at athenemiranda@hotmail.com so we can finish making the fanbook.
THE FANBOOK IS HAPPENING.
Albeit with fewer pages than estimated originally (50-60), depending on how many submissions I still receive today & in the next few days (I’ll be super busy until Wednesday, so that’s your grace period — I can’t guarantee that I can still include submissions that are sent in a week or two later, if I have already begun working on the indesign by that point! Still gotta do some editing first…).
Printing costs, I am calculating with 50-60 copies right now; price per book will be between 8-12 dollars, depending on pages and quality (I’ll put up polls for that later).
THANKS GUYS FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN, NOW GET IN YOUR LAST SUBMISSIONS! If this turns out to be a success, I might start up another similar project later this year!
Three more days! Please try to send in your submissions on time, guys - I won’t be too strict about that because of timezones and my own busy schedule, but let’s keep the deadline in mind! (Also, if you can, try to send in your stuff earlier just in case there are some minor problems with any submissions.) I’d like to start working on the indesign of the book as soon as possible if we get enough submissions to make a printrun feasible.
Guys, please keep in mind that you have about two more weeks to send in your submissions. It won’t be possible to postpone the deadline a second time, so make sure to finish your fanworks!
Anonymous asked: Hi I have a few questions: How many submissions would be enough for the book to be printed?, If you get less than expected but still more than 10 or so, would you still make a digital version of it?, Are you going to turn down submissions if they do not have a specific quality, composition, coloring, etc ? Thanks!
Hi and thanks for the question!
1. About twenty or so submissions would be needed to justify a print run - enough to fill about 80 pages, though we’re flexible there. With about ten, a free digital version could still be done, yes.
2. The only reason for turning down a submission would be bad quality, for example if a fic is unreadable (has a lot of grammar mistakes, bad formatting etc) or a five minute sketch. Things such as composition and coloring are entirely up to the contributor.
Okay! Seeing as the deadline is drawing closer and we are dangerously low on submissions so far (it’s really not enough to justify a print run), I will now officially postpone the deadline and change submission rules. Hopefully after this one we will have enough fanwork to make the book happen, but again, it’s up to you guys to submit and spread the word.
NEW DEADLINE: APRIL 30
RULES CHANGE: Each contributor can submit more than two fanworks and the limitation on length of fics and comics/doujinshi can be ignored (though be reasonable with this and don’t submit, say, 5+ fanarts, a fic or two of 10k words, or a doujinshi with 30+ pages). If there’s too much, content wise, from a single contributor I may ask them which of their submissions they definitely want included and which can be left out in favor of other submissions.
If after this date we still don’t have enough submissions, I’ll have to cancel the project, unfortunately. So get on drawing/writing!
SUBMISSIONS
80 blank pages want your FANWORKS
Guidelines & Specifications
NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS PER CONTRIBUTOR
For now, each individual contributor can submit two (2) different pieces of fanwork. You CAN submit more, but I might ask you to settle for two in order to give everyone who submits a fair chance to appear in the book.
Since space is limited, each contributor is given four (4) pages max. You can divide these between your submissions as you like, e.g submit one page of fanart, and three pages worth of fanfic, or two fanarts spread across two pages each.
An exception to the above rule is made if you contribute a doujinshi/comic with a cohesive story, which pushes your max number of pages to eight (8).
This is subject to change if we do not receive enough submissions to fill at least 78 pages.
CONTENT
Almost any sort of subject matter is allowed, and the themes are free for you to choose. Het, gen, slash, everything goes, as long as it is related to Metal Gear. Fanwork for non-canon Metal Gears, such as Ac!d or Revengeance, is also allowed.
Any rating is allowed. However, do not depict pedophilia, bestiality, extreme violence or full frontal genitalia (the last two only apply to artwork). Rule of thumb: Keep the smut classy/tasteful and make sure Saph doesn’t have to go to jail. If you’re unsure, ask.
We would strongly prefer if your fanwork has not been published in any communities, archives or galleries yet, to keep the content of the book fresh and new. Once the printed version of the book has sold out, we might put online a free digital copy and you can upload your fanwork wherever you like. Of course we can’t exactly force you to stick to this because it is your work, but we’d like to keep things exciting for everyone.
ART
Single pieces of fanart can be one DIN A4 page, or be spread across two. They can be in color.
Format: 216x303mm (2551x3579 px) @ 300 dpi for one DIN A4 page to ensure high quality. CYMK or RGB color mode are fine. However, make sure that you don’t place important elements at the edges of your image! Estimate about 3-5mm border where the paper will be cut off (trim area). If you do a 2-pages image, a total length of 416mm (4913 px) will apply, again with 3-5mm border (not in the center where the pages connect). Please save as high quality JPG!
Chewilicious@LJ and Ikipud@LJ were kind enough to create templates for both formats (keep the advice provided there in mind). Additionally, there should really be no important details at the very bottom of your image, even slightly above the red trim area, just in case we want to number the pages or add your name.
Doujinshi/comics can be a total of 8 pages, but must be strictly black and white, and the contributor won’t be able to send in another submission in this case. If you stay within the 4 page limit, this does not apply.
Language used in comic/doujinshi must be English, and reading order must be left to right (western style).
Quality: While we don’t expect everyone to be a master artist, we do want to see that you put some effort into your work. Five-minute-sketches will most likely not be accepted.
FICTION
The estimate of words per page is 650, which means that your story can have a max wordcount of 2,600 words. You can also submit two fics at 1,300 words each. While not a must, it would be absolutely lovely if you could consider these wordcount per page levels so your fics will fill whole pages, e.g. it should preferably have around 1,300 words instead of 900. This way, we can avoid blank spaces.
Must be written in English language.
Your fic should, preferably, be a one-shot and not part of a bigger story.
Quality: please make sure your fic is formatted properly, has correct grammar and preferably no typos. We’ll probably still do minor edits to integrate fics as perfectly as possible into the fanbook, but we won’t extensively beta your fic, nor is it our job to make it readable. Thene (athenemiranda@LJ) has volunteered to proofread submitted fics and eliminate leftover mistakes.
Please attach your fic as an .odt, .rtf or .doc file to the submission mail.
READY TO SUBMIT? Then fill out this form!
NAME: (your alias that you want to appear under in the book)
COUNTRY: (where do you live)
WEBSITE: (optional, if you have a blog, a fic archive or an art gallery, give us a link if you want it to be included in the credits of the book)
EMAIL: (optional, will appear in the book if provided)
AUTOR’S COMMENT: (Here’s where you can leave a final author’s comment about your work or the participation in the project or anything else, that will be included in the credits of the fanbook. Please try to keep it short and not write a novel! 150 words or less.)
SUBMISSION: (what are you submitting? single page art, double page art, fic, comic)
AND SEND IT TO mgsfanbook2012@gmail.com TOGETHER WITH YOUR FANWORK. We will look over your submission and if it’s acceptable, we’ll send you a confirmation and you’re an official contributor! If there’s something wrong with your submission, we’ll tell you and give you a chance to fix it.
TENTATIVE DEADLINE: MARCH 30TH
Both guidelines and deadline are subject to change, depending on submissions!
AND AGAIN IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, DON’T HESITATE TO ASK.
WHAT IS THIS AND WHAT AM I DOING HERE? If you’re seeking answers to these questions, check the FAQ below.
Okay so, what exactly is this?!
A non-profit fan project, obviously! Basically, we’re compiling fanworks that are related to the videogame franchise Metal Gear Solid, created by Hideo Kojima. These fanworks can be either fanarts, short comics, or short fanfictions, and will include anything from harmless gen over slash to NC-17 content. Exactly what people produce all the time in fandom, right? Just with one major difference—we’re trying to get it intro printed form so you can hold something in your hands. 2009, there was already a successful fanbook project being run, but unfortunately, a 2010 or even 2011 edition never came to be. We’d like to change that! In the spirit of the last released game, Peace Walker, as well as our combined effort of packing all our fandom love into one tiny book, the subtitle of this year’s Fanbook will be Lovepacking.
All right, then. So who’s participating in this?
You, possibly! We will be looking for contributors so submit their fanwork to us in the future. If you wanna know who’s organizing this, it’s mostly just two people—myself (saphrawn@LJ) doing all the organization, editing, design and the actual printing and most importantly Thene (athenemiranda@LJ) as our sponsor enabler, as she is the one who will be covering for the printing costs at first. And of course, there are a lot of people helping us out by promoting this project, as well as giving advice.
You mentioned costs! But since you said this is non-profit, this won’t cost anything, right…?
Unfortunately, we can’t do that. While we’d love to just pay for all this stuff ourselves and not charge anything, printing books of any kind is a pretty costly affair. The final price of a fanbook copy still has to be determined (depends on how many we are going to print, the number of pages, and the chosen quality), you will probably have to pay at least 10$ plus shipping to your country. And yes, even contributors have to pay, sorry! Remember, this is non-profit and what you’re paying for is the paper on which your work is printed on.
So international orders are possible?
Absolutely. Much like MSF, fandom knows no boundaries. We’ll inform you about payment options on a separate post later, but I can already tell you that PayPal would be the preferred and quickest option. So if you have one, good! If not, you might wanna consider getting one, but even if you don’t for some reason—we’ll work something out if you really want a copy, no matter where you live.
Okay, cool. So how can I contribute some of my work?
We will be opening up submissions in January, and also give you some guidelines and specifics as for what is acceptable and what kind of format we’ll need. If you’re interested in contributing, purchasing or both, it’s a good idea to watch our LJ comm or follow this Tumblr for updates.
When will the fanbook be actually done?
We can’t give you any dates yet, since we’re still in the planning stage! But expect it to be around summer, if everything goes well.
Will there be a 2013 fanbook?!
Hold your horses, now! We’re not even done with this one yet. But if the 2012 edition turns out to be a success, it might be possible.
I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION
Ask! That’s what the ask feature is for. You can also send me a LJ PM, contact me on AIM (iimonodana), or find me on Twitter (saphrawn).
I am Hideo Kojima and I would like a copy I am going to sue you now.
Aw come on, you wouldn’t. But in order to prevent anything like that happening, let’s say it together: This is a non-profit fan project. METAL GEAR SOLID and all related characters are © Konami, Kojima Productions and Hideo Kojima. We don’t claim to own any of their spiritual property, we’re just fans messing around and having a good time by sharing our love for this series with each other.
If you’re planning on purchasing the fanbook (contributors and non-contributors), and got an account on LJ, please let us know in our LJ poll here so we can estimate the total number of copies we’ll have to print. The higher the print run, the lower the cost will be for a single copy. So tell your friends!
