Submitting a Story

1. There is no entry fee, and all story types are considered, as long as the audio can be heard, the story generally makes sense, it is not overtly offensive, objectionable, or politically motivated (*please see note below), and you believe it to be true.

2. By submitting a story, you acknowledge you are giving the Your Best True Story Podcast rights to play your story on the podcast, as well as potentially use it in promotions, without expecting any financial payment outside of potentially (but not guaranteed) winning the public vote-determined cash prize for the month within which your story is played.

3. You may submit your story in three ways: (1) by calling toll free to 888-548-7519 and leaving a voicemail with a 10 minute maximum time limit, or (2) by using the “start recording” button at the bottom of this page to record and submit (also with a 10 minute max time limit), or (3) by recording your own audio wav of mp3 file and emailing it to truestorysubmission@proton.me

4. If you end up getting cut off by the voicemail toll-free number or the below “record now” button at 5 minutes, feel free to call back in to continue your story, if you need. Just make sure to give the same identifying info (email address and/or name) at the beginning of the second recording, so we can make sure to match it up correctly with your first.

   Best Practices

5. At the beginning of your call (so you don’t forget about it at the end) please clearly spell out your email address, TWICE, so that we can Venmo or Paypal your prize money to, if you win. And don’t worry, your email address will NOT be played on air.

6. When recording your story, there are a couple of suggestions to help ensure you get the most positive response. (1) Introduce yourself by first name and where you’re calling from (example: “Hey Everyone, this is Joe calling from Atlanta”), although this is not required. (2) Preface your story with what “type” of story you are telling (example: “I’m going to share a really weird UFO story that happened to me a few years back”), so the audience has a feel for the desired tone of your story.

7. You can submit a story anonymously, if you wish, just make sure you provide some way for us to send you the prize money if you win (email or phone number).

8. Currently, English is the only language we can accept stories in. Sorry. This isn’t racist, we just can’t understand anything else. Hopefully AI will change this in the near future.

9. Typically, telling a story authentically from memory, rather than perfectly rehearsed, resonates best with an audience. However, if you feel more comfortable writing out your story first and reading it, that is completely fine. If you do it this way, you might want to state something to audience like “I wrote this down and will read it now, so I don’t forget anything” at the start of your story, so people don’t think it sounds fake.

10. Please don’t try to squeeze in extra details about your personal life, or opinions, to sway audience voting such as “my mom’s got toe cancer and we really need to win this money.” Sorry about your mom’s toe cancer, but if this type of thing is too blatant we might have to reject the story from being played. All stories should be voted for just on the merit of the story being told itself, not guilt or anything else.

11. Please keep in mind that we currently do not have the ability to confirm anything about whether your story was received, will be accepted, rejected, or when it will play via email or any other method. Sorry. If you do not hear your story played within two months of submitting it, feel free to resubmit. Sometimes things do get lost, or accidentally erased.

    Story-Playing Process

12. All story submissions received in a calendar month will most likely be played the next calendar month. For example, if you submit a story in the month of April, it will most likely be played in the month of May. Sometimes, depending on volume, this could be extended by another month. If you have not heard it within two months it is same to assume it was rejected for some reason (audio quality or objectionable material for example) or was misplaced (overlooked or accidentally deleted for example), so feel free to resubmit.

13. If you have multiple amazing stories to submit… excellent! Please do limit yourself to submitting one story per month though, as we’d prefer to keep the playing field among story tellers as even as possible for each voting period.

14. We will never edit a submission to alter content, but may, rarely, lightly edit a submission to make it clearer to understand, or “bleep” out an objectionable word or phrase, if the rest of the story is amazing.

    Voting for the Best Story

15. Audience voting for the best story of the month will take place in the first week of the next month on this page. For example, if your story was played on the podcast in May, the audience would potentially be voting for your podcast during the first week of June.

16. Voting will be conducted only via the yourbesttruestory.com website, from midnight of the 1st day of each month, until midnight of the 7th day of each month. Whichever story receives the greatest percentage of votes during that timeframe wins the $250 cash prize.

17. There is no restriction on you self-promoting your story through social media or any other way to increase your chances of winning the vote, and in fact, it is actively encouraged. Go ahead and recruit your friends to win. Feel free to share the episode your story is played on wide and far, and direct as many people as you can to vote for it at yourbestruestory.com

18. Payment of the cash prize to the story winner will be done through either Venmo or Paypal (in US dollars) after the winner of each vote is determined. You must use one of these services to receive prize payment, as physical mailing is not an option.

*Note about stories NOT being accepted*

Your Best True Story reserves the right to not accept or play any story we don’t find acceptable, for any reason. If you story is deemed unacceptable, it will not be saved and will be deleted without notice. That said, we’ve got a pretty strong stomach and don’t offend easily, so as long as you don’t come across as a completely belligerent person with an agenda, or are talking about harm to minors or are trying to promote violence or abuse to anyone, you’ll probably be okay. Even some swearing is okay, as long as it doesn’t drown out the rest of the story.