Saturday, April 04, 2009

Invisible Ink




Last year my short story 'All in the Family' was published in Invisible Ink 2. The anthology published the chosen stories anonymously and readers, when they were finished, were meant to log onto the website and vote for their favourite story. After six months, the story with the most votes would win £1000 and a publication deal with Baineth Publications (publishers of Invisible Ink).

The voting for Invisible Ink 2 closed in December 2008 and for months I've been hopping over to Baineth to see whether the winners of the competition had been announced.
Last week I received an email from the proprietor of Baineth Publications, Fiona Foster. Unfortunately, due to serious health problems, she has had to cancel the competitions and close down the publishing house.
I'm sorry to hear this, more for Fiona's sake than for mine. I don't mind not winning the £1000 and publication deal (although I could do with the money) but I am disappointed I don't know how many votes I got. Vanity, I know, but there you go. Even an inkpot isn't immune to ego. Perhaps it is better I don't know.

4 comments:

DNOTY07 said...

I thought your story was the best, and I hoped your post was leading up to the big annoucement...

Anyway, it must be disappointing not even to hear how you stood. However, as you said, the worst thing is that the publication has gone out of business.

Anonymous said...

What a shame. Yes, it would have been nice to have known that you would have won if the poor woman hadn't gone out of business. Still it is a great story and I am sure you would have won.

Unknown said...

I am sorry you didn't get to know if your story got high votes or not.

As a terribly evil person, I always enhanced my chances in votes by influencing people. Always got more presents than other teachers at Teachers' Day with my brain-washing schemes in class. :)

Oh don't be sad, if you got published, you are good! :)

Inkpot said...

Thanks DNOTY07. At least now I can try and sell the story as a reprint.

Thanks Anon. I'm not sure I would have won at all, but it is really kind of you to say it.

Thanks Shadowthorne. I like your plan. I tried to influence the results too. I told everyone I know to sign in with different accounts and vote for my story. Now I will never know if it worked or not.