About this project
CellStories.net will offer a new story, every day. Free and surprising, CellStories strives to bring writing that's unexpected to your mobile device. Like all good stories, some are true, some are not, and many fall in that wonderful grey area between.
That's the pitch, anyway. You can read more about it in the Chicago Reader, if you want to know more about the philosophy and background on the project. But the beauty of simple ideas is that they can be explained simply: log in, read something amazing.
And we're almost there in terms of having a lineup of amazing stories ready to roll. Literary fiction, narrative journalism, personal stories, and much more. It's going to be really cool, I swear (I've made cool things before, like the magazine Punk Planet and published lots of cool books, like Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned, so I'd like to think that there's a track record there).
Anyway. Here's the thing: this isn't a rinky-dink HTML site, or a freebie blog engine. The whole thing was written from scratch and, as a result, a $5/month hosting plan won't cut it. And here's the other thing: I really, really want this to be free. Awesome stories for free--it's got a good ring to it, huh?
And that's where you come in: Hosting this is going to cost $35 a month. It's not a huge amount but, over the course of a year, it's more than I can probably afford to just shell out. So I'm hoping that if you like the idea--if you yourself would want to spend a lunch break, or a train ride, or a beer on the couch reading a story that entertains you--then you'll toss a few bucks our way. Enough of you do so, and we'll have a year of hosting in the bank. Seriously, that would be great.
Thank you so much!
Dan
PS. If you pledge over $10, I will mail you a hand-written thank you note. Really!
FAQ
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20
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$815
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on August 31, 2009.
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A handwritten thank you from me to you! For real! Old fashioned style! You'll get it in the mail and everything!
Project By
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Dan Sinker teaches in the journalism department at Columbia College Chicago where he focuses on entrepreneurial journalism and the mobile web. He was the founding editor of the influential underground culture magazine Punk Planet until its closure in 2007 and is the editor of We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet, the collected interviews. He was a 2007-08 Knight Fellow at Stanford University and currently blogs about media for the Huffington Post. He is also the founder of the forthcoming mobile-only site, CellStories.net which will kick maximum ass.
