Hello, Stabbers! So the time has come to display all your hard work to the innernets.
You are responsible for two things:
1) Post your work on your scheduled posting date. Not before the date, not after the date; ON your posting date, any time within those 24 hours preceding 11:59PM ET. You will receive an email advising of your posting date on December 10th. Posting runs from Dec 15th to 22nd.
Fic should be posted to AO3 and included in the StabFest 3: Return of the Stab collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stabfest3_RotS. AO3 posts can be drafted ahead of time, but you will need to manually press the "Post Work" button on your posting date.
The AO3 post may embed the art within the body of the text; discuss with your artist to see if they're okay with that. Embedding audio or video files may be more complicated.
Visual art can be posted to whichever site the artist chooses; we recommend Tumblr, as the StabFest has its primary presence on that platform. For the raw file hosting, you might want to use a different service, as Tumblr can be flaky with image URLs. (If that sounds Greek to you, don't sweat it. Post where you're comfy.) Tumblr posts can be scheduled in advance to post at a specific date and time.
All pitch posts must contain a link to the catch post, and vice versa. All posts should indicate the fanwork was created as part of StabFest.
Visual art embedded on AO3 and art hosted on Tumblr and Twitter MUST have Alt ID. This is an accessibility issue for screenreaders and people on crappy wifi. We've all been there. Please see below for resources on how to do this.
Other types of media such as audio and video can also be hosted and displayed on whichever site the stabber prefers. We just need a link that can be included in the promo post and masterlist for people to follow to witness the glory of your creation. You must provide accessibility descriptions of visual and audio elements, such as transcripts of podcasts.
If your work has multiple segments, such as chapters or separate images, you have the option to spread out posting. You must post at least the first segment on your posting day, and have posted all segments by the end of posting at midnight.
2) Complete the Posting Form. You will receive an email the day before your posting date with a link to the airtable form. In the form, you will provide the links to posts of both pitch and catch, and advise Title, Summary, Tags, what stickers you're eligible for, etc. This information will be used to create a promotion post on the official StabFest Tumblr.
This is also where you will provide a promotional banner, if your team has one; this is optional, but it's nice to mix it up from the default. See below for information on banner requirements. You will need to proved a text alt ID for the banner as well.
Submit the posting form AFTER YOUR LINKS ARE LIVE. The mods will post the promo shortly after the form is received. (The posting form is also used to collect information for STABFEST WRAPPED. Answering those questions is optional, but very helpful to the mods. Please.)
Banners are a fun but optional piece of promo art for your team. If you provide a banner when filling out the posting form, the mods will use that image instead of the default image heading for the official promo post.
Name of fest OR an official logo. (Or both!)
There are a few options for the fest name, including but not limited to: StabFest3, StabFest 3: Return of the Stab, StabFest Episode III, StabFest2024, DeanCas StabFest, DeanCas* StabFest.
Official logos are transparent .pngs located on Google Drive, here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/178mOu07xk82paymZ2ikkADz8XQnxhP7L?usp=sharing
If you have trouble accessing the folder, shoot us a quick email and we'll send them out to you. (Mass emails with lots of attachments get punted into spam a LOT; otherwise we'd email them from the jump.)
AO3 has a posting tutorial here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tutorial-posting-a-work-on-ao3
Information about embedding images in a work here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/posting-and-editing#embedimage
Information about formatting content with html here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/formatting-content-on-ao3-with-html
For quick reference, here is the HTML code for embedding an image with an alt id and resizing: <img src="https://preview.ibb.co/dnat2G/image1_2.jpg" width="200" alt="photo of an origami bow" /> Width can also be expressed as a percentage instead of pixels. width="50%" for example.
For guidance on how to write an alt ID, here: https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-amateur-art/
That page also has a link to platform-specific instructions for posting the alt ID.
If you have further questions or need help, feel free to reach out to the mods by email [ deancasstabfest at gmail.com ] or in the Tumblr askbox !
