It’s that time again! A little over a year ago, I  was sitting at my kitchen table, getting ready to write my first post and delve into twelve months of confessions, clutter, and piles of stuff. I didn’t know how the year was going to turn out, and I’m still in the process of evaluating it.

But my turn is up, and though I feel sad to be leaving, I’m excited to meet the person who’s going to take over for me. When I first found this blog, I had no idea I’d have the chance to take it over for a year. But I knew I found it useful and inspiring and relatable, and I hope my words and stories have done that for you. And now someone else will have this opportunity, and I’m really excited to see how The Simple Year grows and evolves.

The Simple Year continues to have an engaged readership, and I can attest to the wonderful support I’ve gotten from our readers during the last year. If you have a story to tell, we’d love to hear from you. We’re looking to feature someone seeking to incorporate simplicity into everyday life.

I won’t be going away just yet. For all the progress I’ve made this year, it seems I’m still a master procrastinator so I haven’t really thought about my farewell and I plan to stay until my successor is selected.

So…if you’re interested in being considered to write The Simple Year 5, here’s what we need:

1. The description of your project
Tell us about your year-long project, describe yourself and any other participants. I would like to hear anything you think relevant. If you were writing an “About Me” page, what would you include? Please also include the frequency at which you plan to post (how many times a week or month). I will expect you to follow through on this commitment, so think it through carefully. For planning purposes, I will share that I allow three-four hours for each blog post I write.
2. At least two samples of your work
These samples can be potential blog posts or unrelated piece of writing that showcase the style you would use. If you plan to focus on some other type of medium like photos, drawings, interpretive dance, please include samples of those as well.

Once you gather those things, please send them to Kerry at kerry 3835 at yahoo dot com and to me at tjdunnederrell at gmail dot come. (But type it like an email address.) Tentatively we’ll take applicants until March 21.

If you have questions, feel free to email or use the Contact Me form.

Additional Details from Kerry
• I’ll probably have some sort of Memorandum of Understanding put together for us to work together, just so all of the expectations and specifics are written down for both sides.
• The Simple Year has a Facebook page, I will still own it but make you an administrator and you can manage it however you choose over the course of the next year. I won’t contribute unless asked.
• You will own your written content, photos and video and I will own mine. I still own “The Simple Year” title.
• I will continue to pay for the domain name and hosting fees for the duration of your year. The site was created using Word Press and is a free application
• No money making with the site of any kind including, but not limited to, things like advertisements (even for used things) testimonials, giveaways, or things I haven’t thought of. I think since we are about simplifying, we should take the high road and abstain from all schilling. The exception would be if you were to publish a book associated with your project.
• If you commit to a specific frequency of posts, (i.e. 3 times a week), you must follow through on that promise. It is my personal pet peeve when bloggers are silent for weeks at a time and suddenly reappear and say something like, “Sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while, but__________” insert appropriate excuse there.
• I monitor stats those through Jetpack and Feedburner. I can show you how that works. Ideally over the year, you will help grow those numbers, so your potential replacement will have an even bigger audience.
• I don’t care where you live in this great big world, but the blog has to be written in English please, mainly because I can’t read any other languages and I’m selfish like that.
• Stay on topic. Yes, I am sure the guy who cut you off in traffic is a funky mothertrucker, but if it is not directly related to the project, try to abstain from posting about it, even if it’s the greatest paragraph you have ever authored.
• I don’t pay you and you don’t pay me. This is a strictly volunteer gig both ways, our contribution to the world.

Not personally interested? No worries, but if you think it’s a good idea, please forward it to your friends. I’m hoping to find someone unexpected and exceptional.

The original post about this hand-off  can be found here.