Tellables is accepting stories with a HOLIDAY theme for any holiday occurring between November and January 1st in any country!

The WINNING HOLIDAY DOUBLE CHOCOLATE STORIES will be published on Amazon’s ALEXA and will receive CASH prizes! There is NO entry fee.

Tellables is seeking individual chocolate stories on their My Box of Chocolates voice app.

My Box of Chocolates voice app pairs delicious virtual chocolates with bite-sized stories.

The stories in the My Box of Chocolates voice experience run less than two minutes. Each one is narrated by an imaginary chocolatier, using a synthetic text-to-speech voice (not human recordings). The storylines generally revolve around interesting or humorous occurrences involving the customers in the chocolate shop.

Conversational Stories – a new voice-driven platform in story telling.

The stories Tellables publishes in their voice app are not “audio stories.” They are “conversational.” What’s special about these stories?

Conversational Storytelling is made possible by platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The underlying technology allows a storyteller to pose questions to the listener and understand the listener’s spoken response. For us, conversational stories are spoken narratives where the narrator interacts directly with the listener. This interaction can take many forms, but it generally involves drawing the listener into a conversation by asking a question related to the story.

See Tellables’ blog post on What’s a Conversational Story? for more details.

Now, finally, on to the Holiday writing contest!

We are excited to announce the Tellables Holiday writing contest. As with their Halloween Writing Contest, they are looking for stories they can publish on their “My Box of Chocolates” voice/audio experience on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant’s Okay Google app.

Here is a link to the Chanticleer authors who won the Halloween contest for micro-stories https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/10/30/tellables-voice-driven-stories-selects-4-chanticleerian-authors-for-spooky-halloween-micro-stories/

And Tellables is offering CASH prizes. 

The individual chocolate stories Tellables publishes in their voice app are “bite-sized,” with a maximum of 280 words. Sometimes, however, they publish stories in two parts. Part 1 and Part 2 are each represented in our virtual chocolate assortment by two pieces of the same type of candy. The listener needs to hear both candies in order to get the full story.

For the Holiday Writing Contest, Tellables is looking for two-part stories. Each part (piece!) should have a maximum of 280 words. Visit the Tellables’ website for more information and to enter! http://tellables.com/blog/

Voice technology offers new and exciting opportunities for storytellers and readers. Passive listening is no longer the only option. Now two-way communication between the storyteller and listener is possible. 

This is a great opportunity to dip your toes into the emerging world of voice technology!

A little bit more information about the Emerging Voice-Driven Devices and the Opportunities They Offer for Writers

Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa are equipped with powerful speech recognition and language understanding. We leverage these technologies to help authors and storytellers engage audiences in new and exciting ways.

While it’s still early days for voice technology, sales continue to grow for both the Amazon Echo and the Google Assistant line of smart speakers and smart displays. Consumers seem unfazed by media reports of privacy infringements, so it appears these devices are here to stay.

Here is an article with 22 Takeaways for Authors from the Silicon Valley Annual Internet Trends Report – Kiffer Brown

Voice technology offers new and exciting opportunities for storytellers and readers. Passive listening is no longer the only option. Now two-way communication between the storyteller and listener is possible. 

Tellables has created a platform for “conversational storytelling,” where brief stories are followed by interactive questions. This two-way communication draws the listener more deeply into the story.

I met Amy Stapleton, the CEO of Tellables, at the 2019 Digital Book World that took place in Nashville, Tenn. The Tellables’ exhibitor booth was adjacent to ours so we met and chatted. When she informed me about their contest for content, I knew that it would be a perfect opportunity for some Chanticleerians to experiment with Voice technology. So without further ado…

For those of you who are not familiar with the Digital Book World conference, it is mainly a business-to-business conference that specializes in content distribution and platforms that include books, ebooks, digital books, audiobooks, podcasts, audiovisual delivery, blockchain, voice, and other media delivery systems.

And since Chanticleer prides itself on expanding the digital footprint of the authors who use our services, we’ve found DBW to be indispensable for keeping us updated on the latest in publishing technologies so we may inform you, dear writer and reader.

“Publishing is at the epicenter of digital disruption.” Paul Michelman, MIT & MIT Sloan

As always, please email us at Chanticleer@ChantiReviews.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Or leave a comment below.