Hello and welcome to BLURB. Here are a few guidelines that will ensure proper posting of your review to the BLURB site. If you have any additional questions, please send an email to: blurb@futuremuse.com with "review guidelines question" in the subject line.

Blurb Recommendations Submission Guidelines:

1. Try and keep your reviews to a couple of modest paragraphs at most. If you really feel you can't determine if you've written too much, you can always use this word count method: *
   *When using a word processor, you can get an accurate word count by dividing the total number of characters by 5.5 *

   A 300 word count is on the large side. However, don't get too hung up on the numbers. Using your best judgement will probably suffice.

2. When giving details about a story, don't give away too much. The potential reader will want the story to be as fresh and full of surprises for them as it was for you.**
   **We strongly encourage you to review both old and new stories. At this time, we are only accepting reviews that recommend fan fiction to potential readers, rather than reviews that point out flaws and problems in specific pieces of fan fiction, or reviews that can be construed as "negative" in nature. We do not wish to hinder any reviewer from reviewing stories. To that end, we will not alter or edit any review submitted to us. Our goal is to get your recommendations to potential readers. However, please be aware that reviews can be dynamic and "critical" while remaining positive in nature. We wish to keep the focus of the site as one which gives recommendations of stories that individual reviewers have found, enjoyed, and wish others to do so as well.**

3. If you can refrain from phrases such as highest recommendation, five stars (*****), that type of lingo, it would be most appreciated. We will be using a large number of reviewers and feel it will provide more consistency if these sort of rating systems are not used. Don't worry, if you really like the story that's going to come across to the reader.

4. If you write more than one review, please send them separately. ***
   ***Please note: If you send more than 3 recommendations for posting to the site at any one time, the reviews will be uploaded to the site over the course of several days /weeks . However, please do not hesitate to send in more than 3 posts if you wish to do so. Posting recommendations in this manner will help to facilitate ease of maintenance for the site itself, and will provide a modicum of consistency to site updates. You may note which reviews you want to be posted first by writing, Blurb Post (1), Blurb Post (2) , etc., and these recommendations will be uploaded to the site in the order that you wish.***

5. Send the review as plain text (.txt) format in the body of an email with the subject header, "Blurb post" to: blurb@futuremuse.com. Please don't use html or send the review as a file attachment.

6. Please send your review in the following format within the body of the email:

   - Story Title by Story Author
   (skip one line)
   - ALT,GEN Category (see #7), Type of story (see#7), finished/unfinished - you may add page numbers, ratings (G, PG, PG-13,R,NC-17) if you wish to do so
   - Recommended by (name of Reviewer) (optional email addy) (date)
   (skip one line)
   - Your review will be here. Please double check for misspellings, grammatical errors, etc. We will try to catch these whenever possible. However, please try to do your own proofing before sending the email. If you make a mistake, please send a message denoting where the mistake was to: blurb@futuremuse.com with "review correction" in the subject line.
   (skip one line)
   - URL of the story

7. Please include this information with the review. If you do not send this information along with your review, your post will be sent back with a request to provide this information.:
   1. Story Title
   2. Author's Name
   3. A URL for the story
   4. Specify ALT or GEN
   5. Category (i.e.: XWP [Classic, Uber, Mel and Janice, Warlord, Xena the conqueror, Other] BTVS, DS9, Mystery, Romance, Children's Stories, etc.)
   6. date the review
   7. [optional] An email addy that you are willing to let readers contact you at.
   8. Whether the story is finished or unfinished. ****
   9. [optional] Type of story (Short story, Novel, Novella, Play, Vignette, etc.)

   **** If the story that you are reviewing is unfinished, we would appreciate it if you can drop us a note informing us when the story has reached completion and the date of that story's completion. You are under no obligation to do so, but we would be most grateful if you do.****

(Revised 02.10.02)