Hamiathes' Gift Exchange is on!

[pendrecarc]

Okay, this is happening! I'm thrilled so many people are interested.

This is the first exchange I've run, so A) I'm very open to input, but B) I may err on the side of what seems simplest this time around. I'm not an artist, so I'd particularly like input on anything to do with fanart. I'm basing those requirements on what I've seen in other exchanges.

Here's the plan. Please comment with questions and suggestions.

Based on poll results, the Sounis LJ community is the most convenient place to post announcements. I may put pinch hit posts in a separate DW community that will also include all the announcements, as I don't want to skirt too close to violating the rules about posting fanfic in this community. (Thoughts on that, anyone? I'm mostly thinking DW because I find LJ post formatting a pain.) You'll be able to get in touch with me by commenting in either place.

I'll link announcements on my Tumblr using the Hamiathes' Gift Exchange tag as well, for those of you who said that was more convenient.

Signups, matching, and posting of fanworks will be on AO3. ETA that if you don't have an AO3 account, you can sign up for one here. There's a waiting list, but it doesn't usually take more than a few days, so you have plenty of time to sign up.

Schedule (updated March 13th):

• Character nominations: March 22nd through April 1st
• Signups: April 4th through the 15th
• Assignments: April 19th at the latest. I'll also reveal all the requests at this time for anyone who wants to treat
• Default deadline: May 20th
• Fanworks due: June 12th
• Fanworks revealed: June 19th
• Artists/authors revealed: June 26th

How nominations will work:

• You may nominate up to four characters. Feel free to discuss your nominations with others, so if there are five characters you want, someone with only three characters in mind can take one of yours
• I'm skewing nominations a bit early to allow some extra time for tag wrangling

How requests will work:

• You will have to submit at least two, and up to six, requests
• Each request must include a list of between one and three characters
• You may repeat characters between requests
• Each request must specify Fanfiction, Fanart, or both
• You're encouraged but not required to include additional detail (prompts, ideas, links to a letter) with each request
• Basically, your requests are different sets of character combinations (or single characters) about whom you'd like to get fic, art, or either type of work.

How offers will work:

• You will have to submit at least one, and up to two, offers
• Each offer must be a list of at least four characters, with no upper limit
• Each offer must specify Fanfiction or Fanart
• Basically, your offer is the total list of characters you're willing to write or illustrate. If you're only offering Fanfiction or only offering Fanart, you only need one offer. If you're offering both, you would include two offers with the list of characters for each type of work, in case (for example) you're willing to draw but not to write Attolia.

What you're signing up to do:

• You'll match on at least one of your recipient's requests by offering both the type of work they specified for that prompt and all the characters they specified for that prompt
• You may choose to fill any one of their prompts, even if it's not the one you matched on
• If that prompt requests fanfiction, you'll write a complete, standalone story of at least 500 words, featuring all the characters specified in that prompt, and post it by the deadline
• If that prompt requests fanart, you'll produce an original illustration measuring a minimum of 500 by 500 pixels, featuring all the characters specified in that prompt, and post it by the deadline

Please spread the word. I'm so looking forward to this!