This is entirely out of curiousity. In my research about query letter writing, publishing and the general chaos of all that, it's become apparent that agents do not like pre-published work. That's understandable. However, I've found a lot of examples that show the work being submitted has won awards in one contest or another. Doesn't that constitute as being pre-published? If submitting it on the internet alone counts, I would assume so would submitting to a contest. What about a short story that was submitted to a contest, then expanded on for publishing? Would the story then be considered pre-published, or does expanding it negate the pre-publishing factor? On a similar note, what if the story had been used during a creative writing class or workshop -- on what side of the fence would that fall? But mainly I'm just confused on why an article would state that agents do not want pre-published work, but then show an example of work which has won an award in a writing contest. Thanks, //R
'pre-published' only means it has been published and distributed by either a traditional, paying house, or printed by a vanity press... in other words, that it exists as a book... while work that's submitted to contests only exists in ms form... aside from the basic premise, there's a major physical difference between a short story and a novel... one does not equal the other, so the book version is definitely publishable... some famous authors have done this very successfully... not even in the neighborhood!... since it's not available to the general public... see why above...
