Textnovel is a community of authors and readers using the Internet, cellphones, emails and text messaging to experience a new way to create, read and share fiction and other stories. Here are some unique things members can do on textnovel:
* Create and add to your story on the website, by email or by text. Write your story from your cellphone!
* Read the story on your cellphone! Get notifications as new chapters are added by your friends or favorite authors, either by email or text message or both.
* Make your story private or public. Use a pen name or your own name.
* Invite co-authors to contribute to and help you write your story.
* Get noticed -- textnovel gives you the power to invite others from your address book to view and rate or review your story, moving you up in the rankings and increasing your chance of winning or getting published.
* Create or read a story, novel or comic in serial form (add a chapter at a time).
* Win big! Textnovel offers cash prizes to winners and publishing opportunities.

Cellphone novels are a big phenomenon in Japan and the phenomenon is spreading to other parts of the world. In 2007, 5 of the top 10 best sellers in Japan were cellphone novels. Basically this is a new fiction style that is characterized by shorter sentences, the use of word contractions and symbols and moticons (such as those used in text messaging) and less detail (meaning that the reader must infer more or read between the lines more). Many of these works of fiction are actually written on cellphones as text messages that are sent to a website, where interested readers can subscribe to be notified of new updates or download entire novels for a fee. Typically readers will read the novels on their cellphones or computers as well. The use of electronic tools to create and read the stories and get regular updates is part of what gives these novels their unique social characteristics and is giving rise to a rebirth in interest in literature, at least in this new form and in countries where this has become a big hit. Here are some interesting articles about cellphone novels or about reading novels on your cell phone:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/world/asia/20japan.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2005/03/66950
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/01/72329
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120830725738118045.html

Textnovel subscribers can receive text messages to notify them of updates to their favorite stories. You should be able to follow this link to read the story on your cellphone browser. Note that although textnovel stories can be easily read by most cellphone browsers, we are working on some updates that should make the stories compatible with all browsers.

No. We are hoping that we can help some of our members get published and that we can help some of them become famous and wealthy (and get some of the associated moola ourselves too!). In the future we may offer some electronic versions of popular cellphone novels so that readers can download them to their cellphones.

A private story is a story you create that can only be viewed by you and by anyone you invite to view it. You might wish to do this if you are working on an early draft and need feedback from friends - you can always make the story public later. You might want to keep it private permanently. It's up to you. Just remember, only public stories are eligible for the textnovel contest.

A pen name is the same thing as a username. But it is the traditional term that authors use when creating a name for themselves that hides their true identity. On textnovel, it is the only name that shows up next to your story. Other members of the site can search for you only by your pen name (not by your real name). This means that if you want your friends to find your stories, you have to either send them an invitation or tell them the story name or your pen name so they can find it by using the site's search features.

Textnovel is hopeful that by the end of 2008 it can partner with one or more major publishers and run bigger and better fiction contests with more money offered.

Easy! Just become a member by registering, start a story and make sure it has at least 20 chapters by December 31, 2008 and that it is public by that date. Increase your chances of winning by inviting your friends to come and vote for your story. Also make sure that your story follows the Contest Rules. Remember that you can enter as many stories as you want!

That's a little tougher. Basically there are two key factors: the number of positive votes you get and the quality and appeal of your work, as determined by the textnovel editorial advisory board. The editorial advisory board makes the final decision but will give significant weight to the number of positive votes each story has received. That is why it is so important for you to invite as many of your friends and acquaintances as possible to your story so they can give it a positive vote.

The $1,000 prize is an incentive to authors to use textnovel as a tool for creating their story rather than simply submitting manuscripts to publishers. The winner of the prize will receive a lot of publicity and we are hopeful that by that point we will have partnered with a major publisher who will publish the winner as a novel. If our predictions turn out to be right and textnovel gets the kind of publicity that similar sites have gotten in Japan and China, the winner (and other contributors as well) could end up with best-sellers on their hands.

As part of the Contest Rules, users agree that in order to win and receive the $1,000 prize, they must sign an agreement that grants to textnovel certain publication rights to the print and e-book version of their novel. The winner will also receive a royalty for sales. Textnovel may also give finalists and others involved in the contests the opportunity to participate in publication opportunities and make money.

Yes! If everything goes right (meaning we get a lot of stories being created, published and read), there will be more contests with more money. The more friends you invite, the more likely textnovel will succeed and the more chances you will have to make money. Does my story have to be a novel to be posted on textnovel? You can also post plays, screenplays, journals (fictional or biographical) and even anime, mange or illustrations if you want. However, in order to win the textnovel Contest, your story must be deemed to be publishable and salable, in the sole discretion of textnovel.

In the U.S., under the 1976 Copyright Act, a copyright is automatically created when the work is created. A work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or recorded for the first time (e.g., the instant you lift pen from paper or your word processing software saves to disk). That may be the date you publish it on textnovel, if that is the date you create the story. However, publication is no longer the key to obtaining federal copyright. When a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date. This means that if you create your story over time and add chapters as you go, each chapter may have a different copyright date. That doesn't really matter though; however you do it, you still own the copyright. Keep in mind, however, there may be some benefits to copyright registration. Visit the copyright section of www.uspto.gov for more info.

Send an email to: add@textnovel.com. The body of the email should contain the text that you want to add to the story. The subject of the email should have the following format: storycode:chapter number. So, for example, if the story code is 12 and the chapter number is 2, then the subject should be 12:2. If you want to add a new chapter, then make sure to use the next number in order (so if you already have 10 chapters, to add a new chapter you would use 11 as the chapter number). If you don't reference a chapter, the site will automatically add a new chapter.

From your cellphone, send an MMS text message or email to this email address: add@textnovel.com. The body of the text message or email should contain the text that you want to add to the story. The subject of the text message should be of the following format: storycode:chapter number. So, for example, if the story code is 12 and the chapter number is 2, then the subject should be 12:2. Notes: 1) The storycode can be found next to your story on you're My Stories page. 2) The chapter number can be found at the top of the first page of each chapter, and is the chapter number for the chapter you want to add to. Note: If there is already text in the chapter, sending new text to the chapter will add to the bottom of the existing text. 3) To send an MMS text message or email to add@textnovel.com from your cellphone, first add a new entry in your address book and then select the option that allows you to enter an email address in the entry (you might call this entry Textnovel). Save this entry into your address book. Now type the addition you want to make in your MMS text message or email (make sure you choose to send an MMS message not an SMS, because an SMS may not allow yo to use an email), choose this new entry as the recipient from your address book and make sure the subject line conforms to the requirements above.

To add an image to your story, you need to upload it first. Once it is uploaded, you can insert it in any chapter in any story by simply putting the name of the image into your chapter where you want the image to appear, surrounded on each side by the symbol *. So if the image you uploaded was img32.jpg, then you would type in *img32.jpg* in the location in your story where you want the image to appear and save.