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Total Quality Reading

Stories are our business ™

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SUBMISSIONS: CONTINUOUS...24/7/365

TQR PROCESS: The TQR submission process does not start with the reading of your capital. It actually starts with the query/introduction email accompanying the attached venture. Think of it as an elevator pitch or an impromptu audition. The style of said may be anything, perhaps irreverent and fetching or intensity that's too fraught to ignore. What will trip my trigger is as ineffable as telling you it needs to Touch the Monkey. It 's just that certain joie de vivre je ne sais quois or the venture capitalist with a certain way about them that translates well through that first contact that will get them read here.

It may be as brief as a few sentences or even just a word that will strike me, the doorman at the club's entrance, to unhook the velvet rope from the stanchion and reverently bade you come in and take part in our secret basement slam poetry space where madmen howl and philosophers chain smoke their way through muttered profundities about making merry while the new mown grass is in the field, pontificating on our duty to make the best of all our fleeting sunless dances in the sun.

Some hints on what the doorman likes:

1. Know the lingo (see TQRspeak on the main menu).

2. Read the FAQ and incorporate some of what you learned there into your intro.  

3. Brevity is the soul of wit, but don't be afraid to beef up your pitch either. Feel your way. 

4.  Make it a bold declaration or a comedy routine...Henny Youngman more so than Lenny Bruce, please! If you think you can bully me into submission to accept your venture, that's not entirely out of the question either. My deal is how clever of a bully are you? 

5. I can honestly say that I've never taken a bribe to let anybody inside, but then again nobody's ever offered...I'll let sleeping dogs lie on that one.

Once you've negotiated your way through the doorman, you'll get a confirmation gmail letting you know that you've made it inside. If you didn't make it past him, you'll get a confirmation gmail, too, just not the one that you were vying for. Anywhat: Once you're in like Flynn the first stop on your capital's journey is the floor. If not rejected on the floor, it is then sent to the Terminal for a 2nd round of vetting by a pair of world renowned capital managers: Bulldust and Wally Sturgeon, otherwise known as the fish. If it is not rejected in the Terminal, it goes to the desk of CEO and autocratic leader Ted Rorschalk the final boss of TQR adjudication. You, the VC, will be apprised of your progress every step of the way, as all venture capital subs are openly discussed on site, from floor, to terminal, to executive suite and in those rare instance of concordance among the live wires sorting through the cap, a stunning and gorgeous capital gain. Just because a venture was accepted on the Floor or in the Terminal does not mean it is going to be featured in this publication. Only when CEO and autocratic leader (aka the monkey) is touched by what a VC is trying to convey will money change bank acounts and bread  will be broken. Capiche?

  

Caveat Canem (woof woof)
TQR's editorial process is transparent, and [seeFree Market] you and your work and e-mail correspondence could be talked about by the managerial anomalies judging your work on the Floor and in  the Terminal. Your e-mailed submission letter will also be listed in the BUSINESS OFFICE to note receipt of your venture, minus personally identifiable information such as physical and electronic addresses. (Important: By 'public vetting,' we do not mean the capital ventures up for consideration will be accessible to the public, only that the comments of those TQR staffers tasked with reading them will be.)
 

At no time will a work that has been referenced by name on the site, be unnecessarily denigrated or maligned. "Unnecessarily" is indeed a weasel word and gives us the latitude to necessarily denigrate and malign. What I can tell you is that it will be a publishing experience like no other. We can be assholes, but also benevolent gatekeepers with helpful advice and suggestions for the future disposition of your capital ventures. TQR sees its venture capitalists as the electricity that keeps its editorial impulses sentient, and, therefore, would be cutting its own cord bundle by unnecessarily alienating any of its  contributors, no matter how whack. Before you submit your capital ventures, please avail yourself of the processes always available for viewing on the Floor, the Terminal and the Big Board. Caveat Emptor.

GUIDELINES 

1. Send one work per gmail to tqrstories@gmail.com This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , and follow this format exactly in the subject line: Submission: "Title", Author's name, word count. 


2. E-mail one piece per quarter as a Word doc. attachment or rtf attachment.    


3. TQR accepts fiction of 4,000 to 12,000 words. Anything over 13,000 words better be The Greatest Story Ever Told, or we're gmailing you back a standard rejection, pronto. That being said, TQR takes anything, from romance to speculative future tense obscurities that only God or Donald Barthelme could understand. We don't put fiction in pigeonholes, but like to think of it all as an archaeologist views an eight centuries-old latrine: You can learn a lot from shit, but it's got to be good and solid to stand the test of time.  ... All you have to do is touch the monkey.


4. TQR publishes at the pleasure of the Rorschalk and, since his standards are so damn high and it's him who's shelling out the admittedly inflationed the fuck out fifty dollars per published piece, your odds at attaining a capital gain here are pretty bad. But don't let that stop you from trying! 


5. TQR acquires first electronic rights and the non-exclusive right to archive the work.  


 

6. Simultaneous ventures are discouraged, but tolerated because what other recourse do we have?

 

 
It's TQR's belief this public vetting serves a threefold purpose.  

1. It will at least diminish the constant wailing and weeping of those venture capitalists who bemoan their sad fates at the hands of those capital consortiums who still vet their capital behind a veil of mystery. You may not agree with TQR's decisions, but, unlike the rest, the vetting process is there for you to behold.

2. It will cut down on the drive-by and often half-assed submissions of those venture capitalists that impose their work upon the Web from the muzzle of a shotgun. TQR's public approach to winnowing capital will necessarily make one think twice before venturing anything but their finest work. This will act as a natural first cut and ensure the quality of the work being presented on the Floor will be better from the word 'go.'  

 
 3.  The public allure of such a wide open process will attract many more investors than the  current style of capital-bearing Web platform, therein guaranteeing a better statistical probability that the Capital Gains posted from the previous quarter will be read by a much higher quantity of investors. Though the possibility of the process outdrawing the product does exist, rest assured TQR is all about the bottom line (Stories Are Our Business).