Call for Fandom Promo Post Volunteers

[grundyscribbling]

Calling all fans of our "small" fandoms! Many people are aware of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and Rings of Power. But there are many more fandoms in Innumerable Stars, and we have a special place in our hearts for the small fandoms.

Last round's promotion of the "small" fandoms was a success. We not only had more nominations for those fandoms, we also had more fanworks for them! So we are planning to do another round of promo posts this year - ideally fresh ones, not just recycling last year’s posts.

We're looking for volunteers willing to write a promo post for one or more of the fandoms on our small fandoms list - meaning any fandom with less than 100 works posted to AO3. We'd also be very excited if anyone wants to promo the fandoms newly added this round - unlike the others, they don't have any posts from previous rounds to fall back on if there are no volunteers.

The promo posts will be posted on Tumblr and Dreamwidth to get people looking at the fandoms in advance of nominations. Your post should answer the following in your own words:

• Summary - what is this fandom about?
• Why should I check out this canon?
• Where can I get this? (The mods are able to assist somewhat with this.)
• What fanworks exist already? (We have links to the tags on AO3, but people who are into the fandom can probably add a bit more - you probably know better than we do if there is more to be found and where.)
• Optional: provide an image (The image must be either your own work, or a stock photo/other image that allows posting - no copyrighted images, please.)

Note: If you would like to suggest a fandom to be added to Innumerable Stars, now is the time! We are open to adding fandoms based on material written by Tolkien or media adaptations thereof. (Musicals, operas, movies.) We do not add new fandoms once nominations open.

Our small fandoms list is below. Bolded fandoms are new this year - we really need promo posts for these fandoms! The links in most cases go to the works for the fandom on AO3; in a few cases, they go to the work itself. Please note the numbers were accurate at the time the list was compiled, but it's possible more works may post before nominations begin.

Fandom	Works on AO3
War of the Rohirrim	88
Smith of Wootton Major	33
Tolkien (2019)	29
The Father Christmas Letters	26
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil	20
Roverandom	18
Adventures in Middle-Earth	13
Mr. Bliss	11
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son	11
The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun	11
Born of Hope	10
Leaf By Niggle	7
The Fall of Arthur	6
Farmer Giles of Ham	4
Sellic Spell	3
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight	3* Tolkien
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún	2
Sir Orfeo	2*Tolkien
The Collected Poems of JRR Tolkien¹	0
Eärendilova Plavba (Eärendil's Voyage musical)	0
Finrod Rock Opera²	0
Horn of Gondor (fan film)	0
The Hunt for Gollum (fan movie)	0
The New Shadow	0*
Notion Club Papers	0
The Pearl	0
The Story of Kullervo	0
The Book of Lost Tales	?*

* Fandom is not tagged separately on AO3; either merged with another Tolkien fandom, or merged with the original (non-Tolkien) source
¹ Any poem included in another fandom should be nominated under its original fandom; Collected Poems is reserved for poems not released elsewhere.
² This fandom includes all production versions - Finrod-Zong, The Ring of Felagund, and Finrod the rock opera all count. We will post the canonical AO3 tag once assignments go out so works can be tagged correctly.

Comments

[hhimring]

That footnote about The Collected Poems could make writing a promo post a bit more fiddly and challenging, depending how strictly it applies. I see why it's there, of course. But I mean, in some cases, it is really obvious that this poem is already in one of the major nominated fandoms or in others that this is an entirely new poem. But a lot of poems in those volumes are quoted in some version in some note somewhere in HoME, not always in obvious places. (Not that the notes in the volume don't say where, of course, but still.)

[grundyscribbling]

Unfortunately, we didn't see any better way to handle it. But if you're interested in writing the promo post, write your post without worrying about what gets nominated where- Elwin will do a post on what should and shouldn't be nominated in the Poems fandom shortly before nominations open.

[hhimring]

I just checked the exchange schedule.
Nominations open in early August, don't they?
I might not manage to do the promo post until late July; that seems a bit late?
But if you get no volunteer who can manage it earlier, I can have a go.

[grundyscribbling]

We'll be running promo posts throughout July, so we're ok with you saying you need to be late July.

[hhimring]

If late July is okay, then yes, please!

[grundyscribbling]

Whoops, didn't realize I didn't actually hit 'Post Comment'. Late July is very ok - let us know if there's any particular date you want!

[hhimring]

Can I have the 29th, if it is still available?

[elwinfortuna]

The 29th is available and actually perfect, as the guide to what poems can be nominated for Collected Poems will be posted on the 30th.

I've assigned you that date!

[hhimring]

Great, thank you!

[elwinfortuna]

I’ll be writing up a guide to which poems in Collected Poems go in that fandom, as opposed to being included in other fandoms, and I’m happy to share this with you beforehand.

My general guiding principle on which poems are in and which are out will be something along the lines of “has it been published in full and is easily available in another book?”

Take Mythopoeia, for example, which has been published in excerpts before, but not in full in any easily accessible publication before Collected Poems. So it would qualify, whereas Cat, which appears in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, would not.

[hhimring]

Makes sense!
Yes, if you could share that guide when you're ready, that would be great! I can make a guess, based on what you just said, but it would be reassuring to know I am on the same page.
As I said to Grundy above, it is quite likely I won't be able to do much before mid to late July.

[zorbo_jorks]

Hi, I can take The New Shadow for promo-posting! (I am zorbojorks on tumblr)
Do I just compile the info and email/send it to you, or make a post of my own?

[grundyscribbling]

Awesome, thank you!

You can do either - whatever you prefer. (If we handle the posting, we credit you. If you handle the posting, we double check you have posting rights to the community on here...and I forget how we handled the Tumblr posting last time, actually. But I can find out.)

Do you have any preference as to when in July you want your post to be?

[zorbo_jorks]

Great!
I would prefer mid-late July, as I will be pretty busy in the earlier week and a half of the month.

[grundyscribbling]

July 21 - 29 are all open, take your pick?

[zorbo_jorks]

Let's go with the 21st!

[grundyscribbling]

Done! Let us know how you want to handle posting. (You don't have to decide now, we can wait on that until closer to the date.)