LitNet and Publishing

Now that, for the first time, I'm actually trying to get some of my fiction published in fee-paying magazines, I was wondering what the impact of having published drafts of work here on LitNet had on their publishing prospects.

A lot of magazines seem to specify that work should not have been published elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be a clear answer as to whether this includes internet forums, such as this place. One website of advice for aspiring writers seemed to suggest that if the forum was password protected, it would be alright - but I think people can access LitNet's content without a password. Another website also seemed to suggest that deleting drafts from a forum wouldn't make a difference, because they'd still be saved in an internet archive somewhere.

I know that there are a fair few published writers on here, and I was wondering what their approach was? Do they try to publish stuff they have put up here? Have they ever had any problems with magazines rejecting stuff because it is up on LitNet?

The whole publishing industry doesn't seem to have caught up with the advent of online fora, or at least that's how it seems to me. It also seems to put the kibosh on seeking constructive criticism on drafts from friends online.

I'm not a highly published author, but I have submitted material. In general, I don't submit something that I posted on LitNet unless major revisions occurred, but that would depend on what the guidelines permitted.

However, that doesn't mean the best ones can't be also posted on your blog or used in a collection later. Having a blog, also known as an "author platform", is important for marketing purposes. If people liked your story, especially publishers, they should have somewhere they can go to get more.

I look at LitNet as a place to practice with the various ideas we offer each other.

Thank you, Lokasenna, for asking the question upon which yours fooly has been pondering for a long time. Additionally, if anyone can "break through" the publishing barrier and the notorious stigma against "over the transom" submissions it would
be you. I'm one of your NitLet fans!

Without some personal connection to the world of publishing it is virtually impossible to get work published through the usual channels i.e. via an agent/publisher.
That leaves self-publishing or 'vanity publishing' as the remaining options, both of which will cost money.
I have tried both methods, but a book's success depends much more on publicity than intrinsic literary value and whereas an established publisher will shoulder the cost of advertising, unless one has the means to spend a good deal of money using the 'vanity' course and also time for the self-publishing method, there is little chance of bringing work to the attention of the general public.
Literary websites such as LitNet will merely mean preaching to the converted and although some members have been good enough to read my work, their approval has not been reciprocated outside of LitNet's sphere of influence.
If you haven't come across it already, I recommend the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook which will tell you everything necessary for getting work published and is also a fascinating overview of publishing per se.

I hear you, Emil. but alas it's what I've been told all my long, long life.
Just like "anything else" (thanks to Woody Allen for the movie of that title)--getting published is a matter of "it's not what you know, but who you know." The problem is nobody ever tells you exactly how one gets to know these legendary powerful figures!

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

I hear you, Emil. but alas it's what I've been told all my long, long life.
Just like "anything else" (thanks to Woody Allen for the movie of that title)--getting published is a matter of "it's not what you know, but who you know." The problem is nobody ever tells you exactly how one gets to know these legendary powerful figures!

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They are neither legendary nor necessarily powerful but usually someone occupying a position within the media who is able to put in a word about a friend or relative's writing. It's that initial contact that allows an agent or publisher to read the work and decide whether to take it on board.
I give an example of this in A Tangled Web but an actual case is the one concerning the Harry Potter farrago where, if my memory is correct, the author's original story was related to a little girl who told her father how much she enjoyed it. He mentioned it to someone he knew who worked for Random House and the rest is hysteria.

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Thank you, Lokasenna, for asking the question upon which yours fooly has been pondering for a long time. Additionally, if anyone can "break through" the publishing barrier and the notorious stigma against "over the transom" submissions it would
be you. I'm one of your NitLet fans!

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Thanks for the vote of confidence! It's a difficult world to break into, particularly if you feel like you can't test the water with your work in a public place like this first. I've been thinking of joining a writing circle to expand my critical audience, but I suspect many of my works would be too long to read out.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Without some personal connection to the world of publishing it is virtually impossible to get work published through the usual channels i.e. via an agent/publisher.
That leaves self-publishing or 'vanity publishing' as the remaining options, both of which will cost money.
I have tried both methods, but a book's success depends much more on publicity than intrinsic literary value and whereas an established publisher will shoulder the cost of advertising, unless one has the means to spend a good deal of money using the 'vanity' course and also time for the self-publishing method, there is little chance of bringing work to the attention of the general public.
Literary websites such as LitNet will merely mean preaching to the converted and although some members have been good enough to read my work, their approval has not been reciprocated outside of LitNet's sphere of influence.
If you haven't come across it already, I recommend the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook which will tell you everything necessary for getting work published and is also a fascinating overview of publishing per se.

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Very much a closed shop, the publishing world. When (if?) I've finished my novel, I do intend to try going down the traditional publishing route first, mostly because I do worry about the fact that self-publishing, as you say, doesn't have an enormous media machine behind it. That said, there are people who manage to break in. A friend of mine recently got her debut novel published by Vintage without having any contacts in the publishing world whatsoever, and their media campaign really flogged the novel hard - reviews in the national press (including one by Hilary Mantel), book-signing events, posters in bus-stops and railway stations. So it's possible, if unusual.

Thanks for recommending the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook - I've had a look at it, and it seems like an excellent resource.

As for the Harry Potter hysteria, while I have my reservations about the books' quality as fiction I do nevertheless take heart from the fact that someone in this day and age can still make serious money out of writing - we needn't all be faced with the future of being starving artists.

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Originally Posted by Lokasenna

Thanks for the vote of confidence! It's a difficult world to break into, particularly if you feel like you can't test the water with your work in a public place like this first. I've been thinking of joining a writing circle to expand my critical audience, but I suspect many of my works would be too long to read out.



Very much a closed shop, the publishing world. When (if?) I've finished my novel, I do intend to try going down the traditional publishing route first, mostly because I do worry about the fact that self-publishing, as you say, doesn't have an enormous media machine behind it. That said, there are people who manage to break in. A friend of mine recently got her debut novel published by Vintage without having any contacts in the publishing world whatsoever, and their media campaign really flogged the novel hard - reviews in the national press (including one by Hilary Mantel), book-signing events, posters in bus-stops and railway stations. So it's possible, if unusual.

Thanks for recommending the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook - I've had a look at it, and it seems like an excellent resource.

As for the Harry Potter hysteria, while I have my reservations about the books' quality as fiction I do nevertheless take heart from the fact that someone in this day and age can still make serious money out of writing - we needn't all be faced with the future of being starving artists.

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Yes 'a closed shop' is a good way of describing publishing, I hope you manage to break into the charmed circle.
You say when or if you manage to to finish your novel as though you might not. I don't know how long you intend it to be or how ambitious the undertaking but, of course, perseverance is a major requirement.
I'm reminded of an amusing story about the late Peter Cook who was approached at a party by a young man who told him that he was writing a novel and Cook replied. 'Neither am I.'
Unless one is very lucky, doggedness is also needed when submitting to agents. John Grissom posted his first manuscript no less than 16 times before it was taken up to set in train a succession of best selling books that made a lot of money for his publisher; no doubt to the chagrin of those who had foolishly turned him down.
It can be very tiresome, not to mention dispiriting, writing to numerous agencies and I wearied of it long before John Grissom, albeit that my first novel was very different from the legal thriller genre that appears to be the mainstay of his output.
Anyhow, don't give up, remember Dan Brown.

Good luck, Loka! :)

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

They are neither legendary nor necessarily powerful but usually someone occupying a position within the media who is able to put in a word about a friend or relative's writing. It's that initial contact that allows an agent or publisher to read the work and decide whether to take it on board.
I give an example of this in A Tangled Web but an actual case is the one concerning the Harry Potter farrago where, if my memory is correct, the author's original story was related to a little girl who told her father how much she enjoyed it. He mentioned it to someone he knew who worked for Random House and the rest is hysteria.

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Ask me, I'm the resident Harry Potter fan and expert. :) Rowling didn't know anyone in the publishing business. After she finished writing the first book, she submitted the first three chapters to an agent who rejected the manuscript so fast she felt they must have sent it back the day they got it. She sent it to another agency, Christopher Little, who accepted it. A year later, and after some 12 rejections (mostly because publishers felt children's books did not make money) they sent it to Bloomsbury Publishing and Nigel Newton, the chairman, took the chapters home and gave it to his 8 year old daughter to read, since it was a children's book. Her enthusiastic response convinced him to publish the book. So while luck does play a part, as it inevitably does in every success story, it is more about persistence and having a good product to start with.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

Good luck, Loka! :)



Ask me, I'm the resident Harry Potter fan and expert. :) Rowling didn't know anyone in the publishing business. After she finished writing the first book, she submitted the first three chapters to an agent who rejected the manuscript so fast she felt they must have sent it back the day they got it. She sent it to another agency, Christopher Little, who accepted it. A year later, and after some 12 rejections (mostly because publishers felt children's books did not make money) they sent it to Bloomsbury Publishing and Nigel Newton, the chairman, took the chapters home and gave it to his 8 year old daughter to read, since it was a children's book. Her enthusiastic response convinced him to publish the book. So while luck does play a part, as it inevitably does in every success story, it is more about persistence and having a good product to start with.

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My memory was incorrect. I was confusing Harry Potter with Mein Kampf that featured in another forum discussion and is published by a subsidiary of Random House.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

Ask me, I'm the resident Harry Potter fan and expert. Rowling didn't know anyone in the publishing business. After she finished writing the first book, she submitted the first three chapters to an agent who rejected the manuscript so fast she felt they must have sent it back the day they got it. She sent it to another agency, Christopher Little, who accepted it. A year later, and after some 12 rejections (mostly because publishers felt children's books did not make money) they sent it to Bloomsbury Publishing and Nigel Newton, the chairman, took the chapters home and gave it to his 8 year old daughter to read, since it was a children's book. Her enthusiastic response convinced him to publish the book. So while luck does play a part, as it inevitably does in every success story, it is more about persistence and having a good product to start with.

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I bet those who turned HP down are kicking themselves over it - probably the worst mistake to make in modern publishing.

Actually, a friend took me to Harry Potter world the other day - he'd been given these tickets and wanted to use them up, and he would only tell me where we were going once we were actually in the car. Despite my reservations about HP, it was surprisingly good fun - if only because seeing how the special effects were done was quite interesting, and I was able to work myself up into an enjoyable lather of righteous indignation over the price of the tourist tat for sale (£28 for a plastic wand!). Although 99.9% of the exhibitions were about the movie, there was one board about the writing process that described JKR's initial difficulties in getting the manuscript accepted.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

I was confusing Harry Potter with Mein Kampf

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That line made me spit out my tea with laughter.

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Originally Posted by Lokasenna

That line made me spit out my tea with laughter.

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I don't suppose Adolf would have been amused but they do have something in common in that they were both best sellers that impressed their readers, although with very different consequences.
The price of the plastic wand tells me as much about Harry Potter as Mein Kampf does about Nazi Germany.

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Originally Posted by Lokasenna

I bet those who turned HP down are kicking themselves over it - probably the worst mistake to make in modern publishing.

Actually, a friend took me to Harry Potter world the other day - he'd been given these tickets and wanted to use them up, and he would only tell me where we were going once we were actually in the car. Despite my reservations about HP, it was surprisingly good fun - if only because seeing how the special effects were done was quite interesting, and I was able to work myself up into an enjoyable lather of righteous indignation over the price of the tourist tat for sale (£28 for a plastic wand!). Although 99.9% of the exhibitions were about the movie, there was one board about the writing process that described JKR's initial difficulties in getting the manuscript accepted.

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I think there was no precedent - until then there was never a runaway bestseller like Harry Potter in the business of publishing children's books, so there was no way of guessing that the book would make money. Even the Bloomsbury guy who met Rowling after they decided to publish advised her to get a day job, because "children's books didn't make money". They'd still be kicking themselves however.

Glad to hear your friend dragged you along to HP world and that you actually had fun!

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

The price of the plastic wand tells me as much about Harry Potter as Mein Kampf does about Nazi Germany.

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Oh dear! :D

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Without some personal connection to the world of publishing it is virtually impossible to get work published through the usual channels i.e. via an agent/publisher.
That leaves self-publishing or 'vanity publishing' as the remaining options, both of which will cost money.
I have tried both methods, but a book's success depends much more on publicity than intrinsic literary value and whereas an established publisher will shoulder the cost of advertising, unless one has the means to spend a good deal of money using the 'vanity' course and also time for the self-publishing method, there is little chance of bringing work to the attention of the general public.
Literary websites such as LitNet will merely mean preaching to the converted and although some members have been good enough to read my work, their approval has not been reciprocated outside of LitNet's sphere of influence.
If you haven't come across it already, I recommend the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook which will tell you everything necessary for getting work published and is also a fascinating overview of publishing per se.

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I concur with Emil Miller that the best way is to be connected with someone in the publishing industry. For those who are not connected you will need to impress an agent, and remember, many agents are also published authors themselves. So, you really need to be impressive to win over an agent and give them some sort of incentive for pushing your book. The book industry is really tightly knit and if there is some substance to your authorship, whether or not your book is deemed desirable, you won't go on fully ignored.

Self publishing really doesn't hold the potential for great success stories on the same level as established publishers such as Simon & Schuster or Harper Collins. If you simply want to see your writing in print and you aren't concerned with selling to a large audience then maybe small press or self-publishing is right for you. In the future some publishers and agents might see this as a mark against your portfolio, but it isn't absolute. In the end it's all about what you want and what you can do.

Regardless of whom you publish your work with it is highly desirable to your publisher that the work you submit to them is unpublished in any format anywhere, print or electronically. Exclusivity is quietly demanded. They consider premature releases of materials a sort of 'leak' and a blow to any potential profits. So, you might want to keep your works private, sharing them only with your agent and publisher. Perhaps an immediate family member or two can read your work and tell you what they think.

The Literature Network might be a very nice message board with an open forum for stories, and however professional and nice this board might seem, I doubt any publishers would want to re-publish materials already published here, in whole or in part, no matter how good the material reads. As Emil Miller already stated, no matter how great a writing is, success in sales relies heavily on publicity. You might think that this reduces the author to a much smaller role than you previously thought but that's how it is. It isn't easy to break through in publishing fictions and it only gets harder as publishers and audiences continue to grow.

That's my take on the whole thing.

[The Literature Network might be a very nice message board with an open forum for stories, and however professional and nice this board might seem, I doubt any publishers would want to re-publish materials already published here, in whole or in part, no matter how good the material reads.
[/QUOTE]

Correct--a publisher doesn't want to re-publish (and pay for) materials that have already been published elsewhere.