How It Works

TO HELL + BACK: A DESTIEL ANTHOLOGY IS NOW LIVE ON INDIEGOGO.

Anthology Content-Making Process
"From the beginning, it has been very important to our admin team that all creators and forms of art included in To Hell + Back be treated with equal weight and credit. The e-book was intended to be a publication in its own right, but the reality is that while we received tons of applications for the print side of the anthology (and we get it! Everyone wants to see their work in print!), we received far fewer submissions for the planned digital exclusive. We felt that even if we had accepted every creator who applied to the digital exclusive, sight unseen, we still fell far short of the numbers needed to make creating a second publication viable.
 * All content must adhere to our theme of “To Hell and Back.” Creators may interpret this however they wish, either as a designated collaborative team or as individuals.
 * The print anthology will contain 33 illustrated stories created by collaborative artist/writer teams; these will include the work of the mod team, who will be contributing 7 stories of their own and 1 piece of art. It will also contain a special section highlighting the individual work of 5 more artists, 3 drabble writers, 3 poets, and a digitally-available component featuring at least 5 podficcers. In total there will be 83+ creators featured in To Hell + Back!
 * When we originally launched To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology, our idea was to create a two-part multimedia fan project, one half of which would be a print book featuring 33 full-length collaborative artist and writer creations, and the other half an e-book spotlighting even more independent artists, drabble writers, podficcers, and poets. For a variety of reasons, we ultimately decided to combine the two separate books into one print publication. You may see this now-outdated information reflected in some older tumblr posts; please see this announcement for more information.

''After lots (and lots and lots and lots and lots) of discussion between our team members about how we should handle this gap, we took a vote and ultimately decided that the kindest and most ethical thing to do would be to combine the creators we accepted for the digital exclusive into their own special section of the print anthology. (Or in our terms, “smush” whatever they decide to create together into one beautiful, cohesive book.) This way, all of our featured creators receive an equal platform for their work. The project will still remain multimedia–along with a pdf version of the printed book, we are in the process of setting up infrastructure for our podfics to make sure all genres receive their due.''

''We’d like to reiterate (from our mission statement) that we are committed to creating the best possible book for your viewing and reading pleasure, while providing you with an intimate and informative look into the process, planning, and execution of our project. Your contributions to every part of this process are something we are extremely thankful for and do not take lightly, and it is important to every member of the mod team that we prove ourselves to be considerate and trustworthy of the fans helping us to make such magic possible."''
 * All applying writers and artists (digital or print) were required to submit a sample of their work, either published or unpublished. Podficcers were exempt from sample submissions on the basis that there are so few of them in fandom.
 * Our final contributor line-up (found here) was compiled on the basis of passing through a double-blind selection process thoughtfully designed to review work on its own merits and help us to avoid the bias that can come with name recognition.
 * The first round was be a group of four of the mods' friends and colleagues, who either used to be in the SPN fandom, or are very involved with the show without contributing to fandom specifically. They checked submissions for consistent spelling and grammar and coherent plot for writing, and coherent art in any style for art. They also helped us to ensure that contributors are were chosen based off of previously recognized work—the mods read a lot of fic and consume a lot of art!
 * The second round was selected by the moderator team, who worked to ensure that there was world/character consistency within content. The mod who anonymized the content did not participate in this round of reviewing in the interest of keeping it all fair and inclusive. Check out our Blurbs pages for more info on our reviewers and mods!