Rejection, rejection, rejection...

Discussion in 'Traditional Publishing' started by deadrats, Aug 19, 2016.

  1. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    WF is password protected actually - at least the workshop is, where people post their writing.
     
  2. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    Is it? Because the way I understand it, what some in the industry call "password protected" is distinct from having an account, and membership privileges keeping you from posting in or viewing the section for critique. Of course, I've seen other editors who had no problem with forums with the latter, as long as the posted work didn't come up in a Google search or something. I try to err on the safe side and only post excerpts or early drafts.
     
  3. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I've never heard that distinction and it doesn't make much sense, but maybe!

    The workshop doesn't come up on search engines.

    Even if there is an extra step of putting in a password, it's not a good idea to post an entire short story if you want to sell it, or more than a few thousand words of a novel.
     
  4. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    can guests see the content of the workshop ? I guess that's the real issue , ie does the need for password only stop people adding content or is it entirely hidden. (from my limited knowledge of xen foro completely hidden is possible , but may not be desirable for the site as a whole)
     
  5. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    Agreed.

    Edit:

    This is the article that first made me aware some people drew a distinction.

    http://neil-clarke.com/first-rights/
     
  6. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Only people logged in can see it.
     
  7. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Hmm. Yeah. This quote:

    "it appears on a publicly available website (like Wattpad or a forum, even one with membership restrictions)"

    makes me wonder if the Review Room counts. Because absolutely anyone can get an account here and then see the contents of the Review Room. If, instead, the author or some other person could narrow that access to a specific set of people, that would also be password-protected, but it feels different in nature.
     
  8. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    See, it's the "even one with membership restrictions" part that makes this hazy for me. Because, if I'm remembering right, you can read stuff in the Workshop as soon as you get your account set up, you just can't post your own work. There's another forum I'm part of where you can't even access its equivalent section without at least five posts. Those both come off as "membership restrictions" rather than password protection to me, but I'm not sure.

    Granted, it's most likely a nonissue as long as you aren't posting the entire finished draft.
     
  9. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    Problem is, I'm not sure if the workshop qualifies as "password protected".
     
  10. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    You need to enter a password to read it - what more do you need? :D

    After seeing the article I get why you're worried, but it's just badly worded. It's echoing common advice which is usually worded better.

    ETA: Though to reiterate, I still wouldn't post a whole short story or more than a few k words of a novel.
     
  11. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    Some places require a separate password, from the site itself, to access their feedback sections. That's what I'm getting at here: whether that's what is meant by password protected, or if simply not having the material in that section appear in searches and it being unavailable to guests is sufficient. Of course, if you only post certain segments it's not going to matter much where you put it.

    Steering back onto the original topic, I'd definitely put some work in a critique section if I were experiencing such consistent rejection. I can say without a doubt that getting feedback on the early draft of one story was directly responsible for it getting published.
     
  12. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    This has nothing to do with having an MFA. It has to do with the fact I don't want my stories published in any form other than in one of my desired publications. If someone can read the story somewhere online (and anyone can make an account and get a hold of the password), it is published. If you post your story on facebook, even if your page is set to only friends, it still counts as published. I have read that in submission guidelines. First rights are gone. Maybe a chapter of a novel is different. That's something I haven't looked into. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from posting their work, but I'm not willing to take the chance with my short stories.

    I used to work for a magazine. You needed a subscribe to get a password to read the stories. The way some people are talking here, those stories wouldn't count as published. And that makes no sense to me. It's the same thing. Same format. Online and password protected. One place is a magazine. One place is a forum. How could the exact same setup be okay? How could it not mean the same thing? Password protected or not, when you put your work out there, first rights go with it.
     
  13. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    It'll presumably depend on what the editor of any given magazine decides counts as published. I doubt they're all working from the same definition.

    I find it hard to tell from this thread if you actually want comments or whether the whole post-for-critique thing was a derail. If you do want them, you can always PM people to ask, or stick up a thread asking for betas. I imagine plenty of people here would be happy to take a look.
     
    BayView likes this.
  14. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    End of the day its a daft argument - If deadrats doesn't want to post his work he doesn't have to regardless of whether we agree with his reasoning or not.
     
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  15. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not going to play this game. I feel kind of like you're attacking me. People can do what they want. My points are as valid as yours.
     
  16. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    You don't have to post the whole thing, or the final draft. I seriously doubt anyone is going to say you've given up first rights because you put the first draft of a short (which is probably going to end up being heavily edited and reorganized) on a critique forum, or because you did the same thing with the final draft of your opening scene.

    Well, I imagine money changed hands at that magazine, right? That's one of the things the article further upthread mentioned as qualifying publication, as long as the story was actually made available to readers.

    If you really don't want to post even excerpts and early drafts, I'd recommend finding people willing to beta read for you. A few extra sets of eyes can work wonders.
     
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  17. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Really? Because it sure seems to bother you that I consider posting my work here as giving up first rights. That's the way I see it. And that is the main reason I won't post my work here. Asking why I bother to post if I see things different than you sounds kind of like a mean girl move. No one else has ever seemed to have a problem with that. I'm sure plenty of members don't post their work for many reasons. This is mine. That doesn't mean I can't get upset over a rejection or participate in conversations and have something to add to the discussion.
     
  18. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    And I feel that you are the one putting misinformation out there. I think this is something people are going to have to look into themselves.
     
  19. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    It may be true for short stories, for literary fiction, and maybe other genres, but if you're writing LGBT romance at least it is 100% untrue that posting your work on the internet means you can't get a publishing contract. I posted the entire first draft of my first book on LiveJournal, disclosed it to the publisher I submitted it to, and got a contract. The same exact thing happened to a friend and fellow author of mine, but with a different publisher in the same genre. It's just not true across the board that posting your work online means a publisher won't accept it.
     
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  20. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I don't know if anyone has seen this essay about aiming for 100 rejections, but I thought I would post it here. With the new year coming up and people making writing goals, this could be an interesting one. My rejection number is pretty high up there, anyway, but I wonder if actually having this mindset could make me braver about sending out even more stuff and applying for residencies and grants. I'm not sure I could hit 100 if I was only counting my short stories. Maybe that's what I should try for then. Or is all this just silly? I would love to know what those of you who check out the essay think. If you were really trying, how many rejections do you think you could rack up in a year?

    Here's a link to the essay that was published earlier this year: http://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/#

    And here's another one published in the Kenyon Review earlier this year as well: http://www.kenyonreview.org/2016/07/doubling-rejection-goal-received-215-rejections-2015/
     
  21. antlad

    antlad Banned

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    Try going about it from another angle. It's who you know sometimes. Spend some energy researching the best agent for that market.

    I didn't read the whole thing and don't know if this was covered.
     
  22. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Four rejections today. I'm not sure I've ever gotten four in one day. Three has happened but not four. I prefer to get my rejection one at a time, like one per week. What's the most rejections you've gotten in a single day?
     
  23. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    I've gotten two in one day before.
     
  24. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Just got a 120-day form rejection from The Cincinnati Review. It's such a long time to wait. I've got submissions out even longer than that, but things aren't working as I hoped. Long waits sometimes are noting more than long waits. The literary world is dissing me at a snail's pace.
     
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  25. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Just wondered if you managed to recover the stuff you lost when your computer went wonky?
     

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