Mockingbird Prints (aka MP) was an idea that floated into my head one day. I was sick, couldn't hear out of one ear and overall just felt cranky. I was surfing on the net and ended up on SIRSRDR, a site dedicated to Quizilla writers that I'm proudly a part of. And my mind began to wander.
I began to think what the future of Quizilla would be, because I somehow became reliant on it to get my stories out to the world. I got to thinking that what if Quizilla removed their customizable homepages? It may not seem like too big a loss to the average Quiziller but for sites like SIRSRDR and just anyone who likes to advertise things on their homepage, it'll be a huge turnoff. And sites like SIRSRDR completely rely on its supporters to advertise their stories of choice, so they would practically die without homepages.
Eventually, my mind wandered enough to ask "Well what if there was a place that everyone could go to find good stories and get links to places like SIRSRDR?" And from there the idea of Mockingbird Prints grew.
MP became a site that I could use to help out my fellow writers. Because there are so many writers out there who don't get enough recognition and many times, their stories die when they come to believe that no one likes their stories because they barely have a fan. And many of those stories are works of gold in my eyes. So I made MP a place where those little known writers can come to advertise their stories in a way that they may get attention. And, to add to MP's juicy goodness, I added an award system for stories that really stand out.
Now, I'm a person that doesn't believe that one person can change the world. But I do believe that if people with the same thought in mind ban together, they can change more than just the world but also how we perceive it. So get out there and show MP some lovin'!
MP is not a site that uses it's members to advertise stories like SIRSRDR. Instead, it's a site that uses it's own popularity to help out good writers. And what's better is that we provide more than just an award system, although MP relies at the MP Award greatly. So here's how things work.
The MP List is a page chalked fulled of good stories. They didn't quite get an MP Award but they are good nonetheless. How the stories on this page get there is by being submitted for an MP Award but not quite making it. If the story was seen as good but lacked what was needed for an MP Award then it's put here for others to see.
How a story is chosen for an MP Award is a bit more complicated. The stories that are submitted are gathered up and split amongst the four Falcons and any Sparrows who have been called in. The stories are then read and reviewed. Once each judge has finished reading their list, they choose their favorite story and present it to the others. The "favorited" stories are then read and discussed amongst the judges. We settle on one story that stood out from the others and that story is chosen for the MP Award. Now that we have chosen the story, we ask the author's permission to post a link to their story and ta da!
But in the end, MP relies completely on YOU. We need YOU to submit stories. We need YOU to tell people about the site. We need YOU to thank! ^_^