What last year’s authors have got to say

story.one books have a standard format and consist of 12-17 “chapters”. You can fill the book format as you wish, with individual stories or also coherent texts. Each chapter always has four book pages: on the first page you can add a picture/quote/graphic/QR code (but you can also leave this page blank) and then you have three book pages for your text. There is also a minimum (100) and maximum (3,500) number of characters. If you write a text with a few paragraphs, the maximum number of characters fits well on three story.one book pages. It is best to write your texts directly on story.one, then you will always be shown whether you are within the limits.

You can fill the story.one book format as you wish, of course also with poetry/poems, all genres and languages are possible – unlock your creativity.

The jury languages of the YSA23 are German and English

You are welcome to submit several books with the code “YSA23”, but you will only receive the free author’s copy worth up to EUR 100 once.

Absolutely. Our story editor allows you to format and lay out text exactly how you want it: you can use bold or italics on words or sentences, and centre or put in bullet points. If you want to start a new line without inserting a paragraph, use soft return (hold ‘Shift” and press “Enter”). Especially useful if you’re writing poetry.

Simply enter the code “YSA23” at checkout. You will automatically be entered and will receive your free author’s copy within 14 days.

Sure, just order books for friends and family, your community and for a first reading/book presentation at checkout.

All authors within 14 and 35 years can participate, the deadline is April 24th 2023.

Absolutely! As they say, teamwork makes the dreamwork. Find yourself a writing buddy and get started. If you’ve co-written each chapter, put both names on the cover. If you want to show who wrote a particular chapter in the book, in the “Copyright” field, fill in who was the author of that story.

Your book will receive an ISBN and can be ordered anywhere in the world and will be listed in all online shops. We also pay a fee for sold copies, you can find the details here.

No. It doesn’t cost anything to take part. Nothing for the design of the book and nothing for your author’s copy which we will send to you free of charge. All author rights remain with you and we’ll pay you a fee if your book sells well.

For 2023 there are three special awards.

Best Rookie: We’ve introduced this to recognise the many young talents. This gives us the chance to highlight the best submission from writers under 18 years-old.

Most beautiful book design: Great cover designs and illustrations get a special category this year. We always receive amazing covers – and this one’s for them.

Best Film Idea or Screenplay: We created this one for those potential blockbusters, for those books which make us think… “This one should be made into a film.”

We get great submissions for the Young Storyteller Award. Most are well written, with a great plot, an intriguing title and sharp design. But the ones which really stand out, and really impress the jury, are the unique ideas – something we haven’t read before, a contemporary, innovative idea written in a unique style which doesn’t fit into an obvious genre.

Write your stories or chapters on story.one and publish them – either privately or publicly. Then, simply click the button to create your book. If it’s a Young Storyteller entry, add the code ‘ysa23’ at checkout. There are also loads of helpful tips and advice on our TikTok channel.

Texts that have already been published can also be submitted in story.one format. The rights remain with you, we only have the distribution rights for as long as you permit it.

Not at all. We’ve had entries from writers who’ve taken part before and submit new story.one book every year.

To take part in the 2023 awards, your story.one book must be newly published between April 27 and August 31 2023.

Both the long and the shortlist will be published on this page and on our social channels.

Once our preliminary jury has chosen its top 20, these stories are passed on to the final jury, who are: Ingo Kretzschmar, Mara Delius, Elke Steiner, Andreas Rainer, Panti M. Baghbani and Rüdiger Barth. And they then get reading. Each juror can award 10, 9, 8… down to 1 point for their favourites. All the jurors’ points are added together. If there is a tie, the jury chairperson has a casting vote. We only announce the ranking of the first three places. The finalists will be announced on October 4 via our channels, and we contact them personally.

At the live final, the top 10 finalists read from their submissions. If you do make the top 20 but don’t want to read, please let us know so we can move someone else up into that shortlist. If you want to participate but cannot come to Vienna, we can discuss the possibility of connecting you via livestream.