Getting people to read your work

[selkies]

First off I'd like to start with a URL: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php?page=1

I really enjoy this article because it describes the problem I'm having right now, I want someone to read my work.

Not only do I want them to read it but I also want them to give me feedback.

So far I've thrown it up on a few forums, waiting for some bitter crazed lune to tear me to shreds but not a single reply.

Maybe my work is a little weird and my patience a little short.

That being said I still want a resolution, so I came up with the idea of a quid pro quo arrangement. You read mine and I'll read yours.

Anyone who is interested reply to this thread.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I quite understand your frustration. Although many if not most of us write out of our love of what we can do with language or the urgency of what we wat to say, we all want to be read - and hopefully appreciated; but so many posts are added everyday that few of us can get around to all of them and in many cases we seek out the poets we already know and appreciate.

You're relatively new here, so all I can suggest is that you keep on writing to your highest standard and in time, perhaps, you'll develop a following.

[Drkshadow03]

First off I'd like to start with a URL: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php?page=1

I really enjoy this article because it describes the problem I'm having right now, I want someone to read my work.

Not only do I want them to read it but I also want them to give me feedback.

So far I've thrown it up on a few forums, waiting for some bitter crazed lune to tear me to shreds but not a single reply.

Maybe my work is a little weird and my patience a little short.

That being said I still want a resolution, so I came up with the idea of a quid pro quo arrangement. You read mine and I'll read yours.

Anyone who is interested reply to this thread.

Well, you need to look for critique groups. I have been in online crit groups and have done in person groups.

What kind of stuff do you write?

[selkies]

Well, you need to look for critique groups. I have been in online crit groups and have done in person groups.

What kind of stuff do you write?

http://words.lacy.ie contains all the stuff I could find on soft copy

I've written 2 short stories and loads of poems, I tend to lose them.

My next short story is nothing like I've written before, it's about a servant who has to spend a night with a murderer.

[selkies]

I quite understand your frustration. Although many if not most of us write out of our love of what we can do with language or the urgency of what we wat to say, we all want to be read - and hopefully appreciated; but so many posts are added everyday that few of us can get around to all of them and in many cases we seek out the poets we already know and appreciate.

You're relatively new here, so all I can suggest is that you keep on writing to your highest standard and in time, perhaps, you'll develop a following.

wow that would be awesome, but at the moment I'm only looking for a critique group so I can bring my writing to that high standard.

[Drkshadow03]

http://words.lacy.ie contains all the stuff I could find on soft copy

I've written 2 short stories and loads of poems, I tend to lose them.

My next short story is nothing like I've written before, it's about a servant who has to spend a night with a murderer.

Ok, so you made a blog where you're posting your stories for critique. Here's the thing, you also don't want to lose first rights for your stories if you're ever planning to publish them. First rights is the publisher's exclusive right to publish it first. The moment you publish something on the internet in a public setting whether here on the forum or on a blog you've lost first rights. There are exceptions to this rule.

For example, I did an online Sci-fi/fantasy/horror workshop called OWW (http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/) for awhile. You pay for membership, post your stories to a secure server, critique other people's stories, and receive critiques, and then can delete the stories off the website when you have enough feedback. You don't lose first rights because you're posting behind a protected website that only other members can access (so it's not public) and it can be deleted before you send it around for submission. No one else can see it but other OWW members.

[DickZ]

....So far I've thrown it up on a few forums, waiting for some bitter crazed lune to tear me to shreds but not a single reply....
You're one of thousands of people in this forum who are looking for people to comment on their stories, but who haven't commented on anyone else's work.

[selkies]

You're one of thousands of people in this forum who are looking for people to comment on their stories, but who haven't commented on anyone else's work.

actually that was the first thing I did once I joined the forum!

I'd like a group where the more I give in the more I get back.

[selkies]

Ok, so you made a blog where you're posting your stories for critique. Here's the thing, you also don't want to lose first rights for your stories if you're ever planning to publish them. First rights is the publisher's exclusive right to publish it first. The moment you publish something on the internet in a public setting whether here on the forum or on a blog you've lost first rights. There are exceptions to this rule.

For example, I did an online Sci-fi/fantasy/horror workshop called OWW (http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/) for awhile. You pay for membership, post your stories to a secure server, critique other people's stories, and receive critiques, and then can delete the stories off the website when you have enough feedback. You don't lose first rights because you're posting behind a protected website that only other members can access (so it's not public) and it can be deleted before you send it around for submission. No one else can see it but other OWW members.

You can append to the end of your blog "This has the following license attached" but tbh I couldn't be bothered, if someone decides my work is worth making money from then I will be more chuffed than anything else.
My only interest at the moment is to get feedback on the work I've done and hopefully improve my abilities.
I'll wait till I've put a lot of time into this before I even think about making money.

Incidentally a lot of the crawlers like google will have a timestamp attached to it which will verify that your work is the first copy to appear on the net (they like to link you to the original) so again I'm not worried about some randomer reposting.

[Drkshadow03]

You can append to the end of your blog "This has the following license attached" but tbh I couldn't be bothered, if someone decides my work is worth making money from then I will be more chuffed than anything else.
My only interest at the moment is to get feedback on the work I've done and hopefully improve my abilities.
I'll wait till I've put a lot of time into this before I even think about making money.

Incidentally a lot of the crawlers like google will have a timestamp attached to it which will verify that your work is the first copy to appear on the net (they like to link you to the original) so again I'm not worried about some randomer reposting.

I wasn't really talking about reposting. That's another issue to worry about, even in private workshops. There was an incident a few years back where someone tried to steal and sell another member's story as his own.

First rights literally means the publisher's exclusive rights to publish a work first before anyone else. Most publishers are going to want them. But if you're not ready to sell your work and are only looking to improve at the moment, then that's fine, you don't have to worry. However, I would still suggest there are better ways to get critiques and improve your writing. Like joining a genuine critique forum of some sort like the kind I already linked to. You could google, "Online Writing Workshops" and see what happens.

[Permenides]

Post work here in this thread, or on this forum anyway, and I can assure you that I will both read it and give feedback. I may even have writings that I would show myself. As for the stealing, I would suggest(as far as this forum goes) starting a thread that is password locked and admitting only those who are honest enough to be trusted in such an area. This should also weed out the dumb ones. At any rate, that will depend on your judge of character, you'd have to be at least decent.

[AuntShecky]

Whether a work is read or not depends on whether
the first sentence or paragraph grabs the reader.
Cf.:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=657830#post657830

Although I have posted criticism of another's work in the past, nowadays I have to think twice before I'll do it. Far too often the writer's feelings get hurt, even though that is never my intention. So even though the poster may beg and plead for comments, what he or she is really looking for is affirmation. (Aren't we all?)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Whether a work is read or not depends on whether
the first sentence or paragraph grabs the reader.
Cf.:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=657830#post657830

Although I have posted criticism of another's work in the past, nowadays I have to think twice before I'll do it. Far too often the writer's feelings get hurt, even though that is never my intention. So even though the poster may beg and plead for comments, what he or she is really looking for is affirmation. (Aren't we all?)

Yes, alas that we can't all be more like Leonard What's-his-name who said, best I remember it, that he knew it was time to get a new girl-friend when his current one approved uncritically of his latest short story...

[blazeofglory]

Writing is a very tedious job and you as a writer must writer deidcatedly making your pieces over and above the rest. And to be a successful writer all you need is commercialize your style; that means avert literary standards if commercial can sell better. Dan Brown sold amazingly and what he wrote earned him both fame and money.

Who cares today and who reads literary comments?

Today everything must be commercialized and products commoditized keeping abreast of the taste of the reader.
Of course we must check with the taste of the day. This is the age of the remixes. See music is remixed and we know many novels which sell staggeringly and we know also that they were plagiarized or some are copy-pasted and yet they outshine the rest

The single reason they sell well is they were crafted in a way that can arrests the interests of the reader.

I have seen great writers who could not make two ends meet out of their earnings through sales of books. There is everything in their books-grand style, philosophy, direction and all else and yet they do not sell well and their manuscripts get rejected by publishers and will get gnawed at in cupboards by mice over time.

Today we live in a world wherein pop cultures sell well. Today we are too much occupied with varieties of things, music, TVs, iphones and the like and we have little time for great books of literature. We choose simple thrillers that can entertain us at bus-stands, at parks and while traveling.

Of course we appreciate great pieces of literature but in reality we read simple commercially successful thrillers, pop literature in point of fact.

I am just sharing my views but not with a purpose to dishearten you, if you are already geared up to write masterpieces.

Great books used to be written in great measure in the past; and today also books are getting published in amazing numbers but they are not profuse with grandiloquence. Books are written targeting not just at a few academics but at the masses whose range of vocabulary is not that high.

Who chooses Milton' Paradise save a few scholars or students who are at universities? Pope's the rape of the lock I remember having read as a student and now few new book shops shelve these books and few readers turn to them and yet we do not refrain from appreciating their beauty, philosophy. We discuss but never reader them.

I think I have said too much.

[selkies]

I think you guys have missed the point, anyone here interested in forming an online writing group? I don't want to have to pay for anything.

[Permenides]

^Maybe you missed my post... ?

Also, blazeofglory, would you sell the last bit of art and soul for the sake of a Phantom? It is the opposite of what you say sir, it isn't about whether or not the masses love the work. If an artist, i.e., a writer, believes that his work is a job well done, then the art has fulfilled every aspect of its purpose. We need reform, not conformation, somewhere we need to dis-attach society from it's bottle of childish entertainment so that they either learn to appreciate one's art, or make their own. And it starts with realizing that the art is mainly intended for the maker, that the popularity is insignificant in comparison to the joy and wonder that it brings to those that shape the clay. The day that an artist steps away from his work so that he can live higher on the food chain is the day that he ceases to be an artist.

Many artists, writers specifically, rely on the criticism of peers to gain perspective in order to better the eye's view, to prevent the waters of the mind from becoming stagnant so to speak. Which is what I think our friend is looking for.

[cogs]

i agree with you both, blazeofglory and permenides... a third perspective: an artist may be so skillful at his art, that he pushes through the pop/classical barrier, and uses each in a masterful way. should the fans enjoy pop pieces, that artist who writes for them is exposed as a master. his other work gets read because of interest. the true fans begin to admire his deeper pieces, and love his work even more. so i suggest tempting the public with what they're comfortable, and challenge them to go deeper.

[xtianfriborg13]

Good thing I learned a lot from this thread! I hope I can have people read my work too! :)