The home of fiction author Val Gryphin…

The Houston Literary Review has accepted my long poem, Eulogy for Life.

And in that time period between this and my last acceptance I have also received 1o rejections.

And I have 8 stories out to 15 markets.

AND! NaNoWriMo starts in about 48 hours! I’ll be blogging my progress heh heh heh. I am invoking the Zokutou Clause as I have won NaNo before, and will be rewriting and continuing the one I started in 2003 - it is at 33k, but my writing has improved and there are some changes I want to make. I’m also shooting for 70k words rather than 50k - which means I am shooting for writing 2334 words a day. Yikes. I’ve been busting ass for a while writing though, so I’m going to try like hell to pull it off.

*starts sweating already*

So I spent yesterday smoothing out the site. The text should now be consistent overall, I changed the way the links highlight on mouse over, all my contact information is now in one spot - and look over there
<————– there is a page with links to my publishing credits I’m anal about going on over and over until it looks like I want it to, and I think for now that I’m happy with it. The only thing that I don’t like is the “Main” and “Publications” links over there, but I am going to make a couple of graphics for them, so the text links will remain for now. Any comments on the site design are welcome.

I also edited my Twitter box so it doesn’t take up so much room. I have it partly so people can have another way to follow my posts as this blog pings Twitter whenever there is a new post.

I had another short story accepted, this one by Ruthie’s Club, titled “Winter Showers.” I also have received 8 rejections this month, which brings my total this year to 27. I currently have 18 stories out.

And in non-writing news, my daughter has the chicken pox. She had recieved one of the shots in the 2 shot series so far, so even though she tends to catch anything like that very severely, she has a mild case with just bumps and itching. She’s quite pleased however that this means she doesn’t have to have the second shot after this!

So of the stories I have out, three are running a long time, not a big deal.

But of the five I sent out in the last few weeks I have received two rejections already, from Not One of Us, and Vestal Review. One is for a long poem I am having a lot of trouble finding a market for, one of those hard-to-place pieces. The other was a piece of flash fiction that I really need to re-work. The other three that are out are stronger pieces, so I’m hoping for more luck with those.

On the upside, I finished revising another short story I’ve been working on, and it is going out this weekend. I also want to get a rough-draft revision done on the short piece that was just rejected. I also have everything I need printed for the residency done, and I’m reading the books I’ll need.

And yes, I think it might be spring here. Yea!!

Or, in non-ten-year-old-speak, Duotrope has gotten a nice facelift. Their icons have gotten larger and clearer, and the colors of the genre icons are much clearer, making it much easier to tell which genre a market is looking for. (Before the colors of the genres could get confusing.) The payscale and length of works accepted have also been made much clearer. The submission tracker has also had a major overhaul as they have made it easy to sort and show submissions using a varity of criteria.

The only downside is the site has been rather slow lately, perhaps because so many people are discovering it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be constantly singing its praises? Nahhhh.

Part three of three.

Part One
Part Two

Ok, so we’ve covered what a copyright is, and what it means to sell rights to publish a work. Now we’ll talk about bad ways to loose your first rights.

One bad way we’ve covered is to post your work online for free without having a clear plan on how you are going to use it for marketing your book. This goes for any site that is offering to put your work online to gain readers, publicity, agents, or a contract. Don’t stop, run. There is no such thing as “pre-publishing,” and posting your work online gives up your first rights. You do not have to be paid to give up your first rights! All that has to happen is your work be printed in a periodical, or put online where anyone can access it. Do either one of those and you loose your first rights, which are the most valuable in almost all cases. While giving away content in a controlled fashion where you know exactly what you are doing like I discussed last week can be a big boost, really anything else is screwing yourself if you are wanting to publish the material.

Another trap to give up you rights are those so-called contests where everything gets accepted, and then they try to get you to buy the book that your piece was published in. Poetry.com is notorious for this, but there are others. Dana K. Cassell has a great article on this called Writing Contest Cautions. Some of her points for spotting bad contests are:

No entry fees - Writing contests cost money to run. If they aren’t charging, how are they paying prizes and judges?
Entry fees that are out of proportion of the prizes offered, i.e. $20 for a $200 prize, of $5 for a $25,000 prize.
When they take your rights by putting them up online or publishing them in a book, or even just state that they will keep all rights even if you aren’t a winner. Legit contests aren’t going to take your rights if you don’t win - once the contest is over non-winning submissions should be released all rights intact. Read the contracts, particularly if there is a lot of fine print.

Finally, don’t put anything you might want to publish later on up on your website, even if you are asking for feedback. Right there you have given up your first rights, and really, the amount of feedback you get will more than likely not be enough to make it worthwhile.

Part two of three.

Part One.

Yesterday I talked about what a copyright is, how to obtain one, and what it means. Today I am going to talk about this concept of selling rights of publication for your work. When you submit a piece of writing to a market, you are offering them chance - or the right - to publish it. Depending on the market however, the rights that the magazine is willing to buy can vary greatly. Here is a basic overview of the rights that a market can ask for.

First serial rights: This means the right to be the first to publish your piece in any form, in any market. That means it cannot have been published in either electronic or print mediums, in any country. You can only sell this right once, although if the magazine folds without publishing your story the rights revert to you. Again though, be careful. I know of a market that folded and the language of the contract was such that the rights did not revert to the authors even though the magazine was gone - always read the fine print. Also, be mindful that most markets consider the the first rights of a work gone if it appeared anywhere online, even if it was only on a personal website.

First North American (or any other region) rights: This means the publisher want to be the first to publish a piece in a specified market area. This means that if you previously sold first European rights, you are free to sell first North American rights to another magazine, and visa versa. (Although you should always specify where a piece has been published before so that they are aware of what market the piece appeared in.)

Another form of first rights is first electronic rights and first print rights. Sometimes print market will buy the rights to a piece that has been published electronically, and visa versa. Be careful though, always make sure that you own the first rights to an alternate market before you resubmit it with first rights.

One-time rights: The right to use a work once. For example, if you are submitting the same piece to two (usually non-competing) markets and offering them both a chance to print the work. Again, tell the markets you are submitting to. Another was it is used is when as electronic magazine purchases this right in order to publish the story without archiving it.

Perpetual Rights: The right to keep using your work. (As in keeping them up on the sire of an online magazine indefinitely.)

Second serial or reprint rights: Just what is sounds like - you are giving a market a chance to reprint a story that has been previously printed elsewhere. (Again, tell the market you are submitting to where it was previously published.)

Archival rights: The right of a market to keep your work archived (for instance in the archives of an online magazine) either for a specified amount of time or indefinitely. How long a story will be archived for is very important to know, because sometimes markets that accept reprints will not accept a piece that still available online. In addition, a market might specify that they have exclusive or non-exclusive archive rights, which tells you whether or not it can appeare in more archives than the original market.

Anthology rights: The right to reprint your work in an anthology. With both this and archive rights make sure you know what you are giving up - when you sell these rights you will not be compensated by the market for this extended usage unless they have specified otherwise.

All rights: Just what it sounds like - while you are NOT giving up the copyright to your work, you are giving up ALL rights to publish your own work - unless you renegotiate down the road (which many markets are not be willing to do) you will not be able sell it as a reprint, publish it in an anthology, or even put it on your personal site.

Work for hire: As I am primarily discussing fiction, this probably won’t come up much, but I think it is important to mention. Work for hire is a very slippery slope as not only does the market you are writing for obtain all rights for the work you do under their umbrella, but they are actually also are considered the CREATOR of the piece. For more information read What Writers Should Know About All-Rights and Work-Made-For-Hire Contracts by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

In addition to these market there what is called subsidiary rights, which mainly come into play when talking about a book.

Basically, subsidiary rights are the right to do anything at all with the writing other than publish it as a book. So, unless you sell subsidiary rights to the publisher, you still own the right to publish your work as a movie, film, videotape or audiotape, and electronic rights, translation rights, book club rights, foreign rights, etc. - Writer’s Rights: Know What Rights You’re Selling

However, dealing with compensation and/or retaining these rights are what an agent is for. Or, if you are self-publishing, you retain all your rights until you decide to sell them. However, if you are dealing directly with a publisher, it is well worth your time and effort to research the deal they are offering you to make sure that it is good for you, not just sweet for them.

Other sources on rights:

Blood and Ink: Publishing Rights
The Business of Writing: Minding the Details

(Part one of three)

Many beginning writers worry about whether they need to copyright their works for a variety of reasons. They worry that someone could plagiarize and claim ownership over their work, that editors or agents might steal their writing or their ideas, or that at some point they might need to prove that a work is their own. Also, many worry that by marketing a pieces they are giving up the copyright to their work. Most of this is inaccurate.

So what is a copyright?

A copyright in essence is the ownership by a creator over their “literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations.” - History of the Copyright.

There are several key points involved in analyzing the copyright process.

1. A copyright is simply a legal term for saying you own a piece of work. From the Copyright Office:

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

2. It is a common misconception that in order to hold the copyright to a work it must be registered with the Copyright Office. Prior to the The Copyright Act of 1976 this was true in some cases. However, after this act, simply putting a piece of work down on paper creates your copyright. While a writer can register their pieces for the Copyright Office for $45 a piece, this is widely considered to be unnecessary. (Note - in this case I am referring specifically to fiction and/or non-fiction. I believe that scripts and screenplays might be dealt with differently, but as I am not a screenwriter I’m not 100% sure and don’t want to spread any misinformation. Screen rights when it comes to books is something else and is included with novel rights.)
From the Copyright office: Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See “Copyright Registration.”

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. “Copies” are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. “Phonorecords” are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the “work”) can be fixed in sheet music (“copies”) or in phonograph disks (“phonorecords”), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.

3. When you submit a story to a market, you are not offering them the copyright - you are offering them the right to publish your work under specified terms. You still retain the copyright, and you are the author of the piece. (Although work-for-hire rights can be different.) The next post in this series will deal with rights.

4. When you are offering a piece to the public, such as on a website, posting a copyright statement is a good idea to warn the average web browser, who thinks everything they find online is free for the taking, that your work is not to be swiped. (I have a copyright notice on my own website.) Also, if a work is published with a copyright and date it can be beneficial in any plagiarism cases. However, having a copyright notice on your work is NOT required by law in order to retain the copyright. (Although works published before March 1st, 1989 may be different. More info here.)

For written work a copyright statement is written as:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and

2. The year of first publication of the work. In the case of compilations or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2006 John Doe

However, when a piece of writing is submitted to a market, the editors know that the author holds the copyright to their work, and including a copyright notice is seen as the mark of an amateur as it indicates a lack of trust in the editors.

So, in summery of how this works for me personally, I have a notice of copyright on my website because I don’t want random people taking off with parts of my writing without permission and/or giving credit. My website is out in the public’s eye, and in the same way that a magazine has a copyright statement, I want to make it clear the content is mine. However, when I am submitting a piece to a market I never place a notice of copyright on my manuscript as it is extremely unprofessional.

Next: What different rights mean.

So I took a peek at their site just to see if anything new had been posted as last I read, they were going to respond the week after the 4th of Feb, and found this.

“Because of the DELUGE

of stories we recieved (approx. 480 for the 2 anthos.) some of you may not be notified until after Feb. 29, 2008. Our apologies.

Some people have already been notified. Stories were read in the order received.”

He he. I’m amused. I sent mine on Nov. 25th, (more than a month before the deadline), so I still hope that means they are hanging on to it for consideration.

One of the stories I submitted last year went to an online magazine, and let me tell you that was an up and down ride.

The first email I got was this:

We’re delighted to let you know that your story, “Short Story,” has just been accepted for its second step in our selection process. Each of our editors will evaluate your story and we’ll make a final decision as to whether or not we’ll be able to accept it for publication. This happens for less than 10% of our submissions.
…
You should hear back from us within one month.

Then a few weeks later…

Our editorial review of your truly lovely, delicate story, “Short Story,” has been completed. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to use your piece at this time.

Once again, though, we liked your work. Please be aware that only a small percentage of the stories submitted to us ever make it to the ’second step’ stage where we’ve been considering your story, and only 52 can be published within the framework of our weekly schedule each year.

We genuinely look forward to seeing more of your work in the near future.

Wow, that was a let down, let me tell you, particularly since this particular editor really did seem to like the piece. Happily, it later was published in a different market

Years ago when I started trying to write seriously I purchased a subscription to Writer’s Digest, and I kept it going for a few years. The more I wrote however, the less help I found the magazine as a whole. Part of the reason was that I found they often ran articles that were variations of ones they ran previously. Given that there are always new writers looking for the same information other new writers looked for first, this is a smart marketing tactic to bring in new readers. Writer’s Market is a huge business, books, website, etc., and I’m sure they look at the magazine as another way to draw writers into their brand market, which probably explains their attention grabbing headlines. While some of the other writing magazines, such as Writers’ Journal and Poets & Writers are a little subtler in their cover advertising, others such as The Writer are not. I feel like the Writers’ Journal and Poets & Writers tend to consistently have a little more that interests me than the other two, but I generally scan through them all at the newsstand, only purchasing them if there is an article I feel like I can use. Right now I am very focused promotion and publicity, so any articles on this tend to catch my eye, as do articles dealing with agents and rights.

Right now sitting on my shelf is a small stack of magazines I bought specifically for an article or two in each. The magazines that only had a couple of articles that interested me I used paper clips so I can open them up to those specific articles each time, and skip over the rest of the issue. Right now I have:

Writers’ Journal Jan/Feb 08 - for “Apples and Oranges: Adapting Your Novel”, as screenwriting really interests me. There were also a few secondary articles that interested me, “From Lowly Letters to the Big Time” and “Networking for $$$,” neither of which I would have bought the magazine for, but they did help me make up my mind about whether I should buy it for the first article. There were also other articles that I’ll refer back to as a bonus. (Didn’t paperclip this issue.)

Writer’s Digest Oct 07 - for a section they had on PR. There were three articles in the whole issue that interested me, but they were all worth it – “Get Your Money’s Worth” (self-promotion), “Sling Your Web” (web self-promotion), and “Marketing: Give a Good Reading” (obvious).

The Writer Nov 07 – “Making the Most of Minor Characters” (something I was focusing on) and “Using Podcasts to Promote Your Book.”

Writer’s Digest Writer’s Yearbook 2008 – “The Healthy Writer” (Health insurance), “Giving it Away” (giving away fiction and goodies on your website), “Get Good Press” (Building a PR kit), and two secondary articles – “101 Best Websites for Writers” and a small part of an article that talked about giving sneak peeks through mobile devices.

Poets & Writers Jan/Feb 08 – “Talent Search: A Special Section on Literary Agents” – a series of five articles. (I didn’t paper clip this one either.)

These are example of the kinds of articles that I have been looking for lately. Tomorrow I’ll follow up with marketing tie-ins from each of these magazines, and how useful I find them.

Just received the email (4am in the morning no less!) from Tattoo Highway.

congratulations! “liturgy of the abandoned” has tied for 2nd place in our “picture worth 500 words” contest.

Sweet! I’ll post when I know for sure the publication date.

And I get paid!

I have had a submission out to the “Slow Magazine” (not the real name obviously!) for quite a while - since February of 2007 as a matter of fact. This particular piece is a long poem, which they specifically state they like in their guidelines. Because I am anal (and my handwriting sucks!) I had printed labels for both the to and return envelopes, I included postage for a reply, and dropped it in the mail slot. (Well, really, I gave it to to post office lady over the counter, if we are going to be specific.) Although I have a tendency to go over my Duotrope tracker and see how long my submissions have been out, I really don’t stress over them, well, until they get to a year or so, and then I start to wonder.

I have one other story that has been out for a year, to BUST Magazine. However, in this case, as it was an electronic submission, I shot them off a polite email in December inquiring about the status of my submission:

I am writing to inquire about a submission for your “One-Handed Read” I sent in February of this year, “Story Title.” I was wondering if I could find out if it was still in the consideration process?

Thank you very much for your reply - I appreciate your taking the time to let me know.

I very promptly received an email reply that stated:

thanks for contacting BUST! It is still in our folder for consideration.

thanks again

So, I know they still have the story, it is still in consideration, and while I will still look at it in my submission tracker, I’ll be waiting a while to inquire again. It is a glossy mag, and I can wait to hear

However, my submission to the “Slow Magazine” is a different story. Part of that story is its dismal Duotrope stats. Of the 26 responses that have been reported, over half were assumed rejections and withdrawals, and of the assumed rejections, the average time was almost 400 days. Yowsers. If you know Duotrope, you know those are some sucky stats. Now granted, I did look at those numbers, and wonder if I should attempt it, but I figured what the hey, long poems are harder to find markets for, and who knows, it might get in there.

Yeah.

So, while years ago I did have a non-responsive email-submitted market (Literal Latte - which is also on Duotrope’s list of low-responsive markets - they didn’t respond to a follow-up email either), I hadn’t yet encountered a snail-mail submission market that not only hadn’t responded, but had such low response stats. I looked all over their website, and couldn’t find an email where I could even ask about inquiring about my submission. So, I thought about it, and sent them a snail-mail inquiry (on printed envelopes, with postage on the return envelope as well), and I said:

I am writing to inquire about the status of a long poem that I submitted to the “Slow Magazine” on February, 26th, 2007, titled “This Long Poem.” I would like to know if this piece is still being considered, or if it was lost in the mail. If I have not heard of the status by April 1, 2008, I will be withdrawing it from consideration and submitting it elsewhere. Enclosed is an SASE for your reply.

Thank you for your time in replying to this inquiry.

Now, hopefully I will have heard from them one way or the other by April, but if not I have it put it writing that I will be withdrawing it. Then I will revise it again as I haven’t looked at it in over a year, and send it back out.

Somewhere with better stats.

So, one of the markets that I am waiting to hear back from is Dark Hart Press. I submitted a piece for their anthology Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry back in November, and they had over 300 responses. The information link, once the submissions were closed the end of Dec., was set up to lead to the anthology’s MySpace page, I thought this was a little odd at first, but since then they have posted a couple of updates on their blog about the submissions they received, so I actually think that it is rather neat. Checked it out today, and there was a post dated the 26th:

Hi All,

In case you haven’t heard we had about 300 stories come in for this antho….if you have not heard back yet definitively with a yes or a no, you are probably on the maybe list (and in very good company with about 100 others) I’ll be re-reading.

I will be out of town from tomorrow till Feb 3rd, so expect a response following the fourth and I apologize, but it will take me a week or two to get through all the maybes…

Sorry for the delay.

So since I haven’t gotten a rejection letter yet, that means I have been in the third she is still looking at, not the two-thirds that she has rejected. Which is a good thing, and there is still a chance. (Yes, as writers we look for every possible indication that we are this much closer to having a piece accepted.) Plus, I might hear this coming week, which would be awesome. Hopefully.

“Dear Val:

Many thanks for sending “Your Story” my way. I found your story to be well-written with good description and believable dialog. You did a nice job slowly revealing what was going on, and building sympathy for our killer.

The only qualm I had with the writing was the use of “began” in the story. Began is a very passive word that can usually be eliminated from a story. If you think about it, you can only “begin” to do something for a nano second before you’re actually doing it. Why use “he began to shake” when you can write “he shook”. Unless something is going to stop him from shaking, the word has not point. Again, this is not a big issue, just something small to improve on.

I though that the conclusion of the tale was well done in that it was both horrific, yet poignant.

Unfortunately, I tend to shy away from accepting revenge pieces. Although your story is very well written, the main point of it is to show someone getting violent revenge on someone who wronged him. As a result, there was never any doubt in my mind how the story would end. I tend to receive a lot of these stories and, as much as I may enjoy them, they rarely offer anything original. You’re tale is by far one of the best of these types of stories I’ve read, but it really didn’t have any twists or turns. As a result, I’m going to pass.

The above comments represent only one person’s opinion; another editor may completely disagree. “Your Story” is a good story that I’m sure another market will appreciate.

Best of luck in all of your writing endeavors,

The Editor”

Now THIS was a nice rejection letter. Not only did he like it (even though he didn’t want to publish it) but he also offered some constructive criticism. (The only thing that really could have made it better would to have actually published it )

But I love them. Well, maybe not love, but close. I feel like every rejection letter I get is a letter closer to an acceptance. I have a stack of them, I don’t throw them away, perhaps because I feel like having them is a physical symbol that I “am a Writer” as it were. In this age of online submission, now most of my rejections are electronic, which means I don’t have that physical proof, but I still save every one of them. I have to say that my best rejection letter, or perhaps just my most memorable one, came from Glimmer Train, at least 7 years ago. At that time they were still doing submissions by mail, and they had a standard rejection letter, tri-folded, with three check boxes on the card. I believe they were , I don’t remember them all, I know there was one that was basically “no thanks,” ( I was like wooo, that one would suck) a second one I’m not sure what it was, it may have been we will be publishing this, and then a third one that went along the lines of “Thank you for sending this, we’re not going to publish this, but we liked it and would like to see more.” They checked that box, and underlined “like to see more” in dark pen. Coming from one of the top-tier literary magazines that was a huge boost to my ego. Glimmer Train** is one of the best paying, most well known, hardest to get into markets. And they wanted to see more of my work.

*sigh*

I felt like my daughter did when she got Corbin Blue’s (one of the hottest “tween” crushes) autograph by catching him at the back fence after a show. She was on air for days and laminated the fair ticket he signed. I felt like that. (Although, from my older, more cynical self this doesn’t count as a personal rejection exactly, but it was the most personal I had received up to that point!)

So far in the last twelve months I have submitted twenty-nine short stories. (Perhaps obviously, several have been out more than once.) Of those, I haven’t heard back on six, one was published (“Spring and Fall” in Khimairal Ink), and the other twenty-two obviously were rejected. However, of those, five were personal rejections, which means over twenty percent were personal. (Yes I am that much of a geek.) I’m not sure what the average is, but I do know that that’s not a bad average, considering some of the publications I submit to. (I tend to aim high, perhaps I shouldn’t but I do.)

I will post some of the personal rejection letters I’ve received over time, but there was one form letter I received that was so funny I have to post it here. It was from Postcards from Hell, and it went:

“Val,

We have subjected our victims to your story but they were not sufficiently traumatized. Your story has been consigned to the Lake of Fire. Thanks for trying Postcards from Hell. Have a nice day.

Minion

editor from hell”

How great is that??????