Jibber Jabber - Q1 - 29

Thanks everyone, all good advice.

I'll read over my new Q4 story, and I've had someone volunteer to look at the first 450. Who knows, it might turn out to my advantage given my thesis deadline.

I think my previous losses have deflated my ego when it comes to the contest. Technically, I could be a finalist over and over and never win. Clearly my subconcious is trying to prepare me for a personal loss by building up my confidence that you guys'll win.

Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but...there have to be some serious odds in your favor. I like the whole quantum multiverse theory. We all win in some universe somewhere!

Incidentally, I had a dream about the contest too, except there were so many non-sequitors it ended up like a Doctor Who episode on acid, so I have no idea who won.

Incidentally, I had a dream about the contest too, except there were so many non-sequitors it ended up like a Doctor Who episode on acid, so I have no idea who won.

Is there a difference between a Doctor Who episode and a Doctor Who episode on acid?

Incidentally, I had a dream about the contest too, except there were so many non-sequitors it ended up like a Doctor Who episode on acid, so I have no idea who won.

Is there a difference between a Doctor Who episode and a Doctor Who episode on acid?

Ha! Well, not so much in the new ones, at least.

These people haven't heard yet. I expect Finalist results any day now. (Disclaimer: I do not know anything. Any expectation mentioned is pure, unbridled wishful thinking.)

1 LAMPS
Isto

1 Hold Pile
Michael B.

1 NNiNN
David K

According to Joni, ALL should have their results by now. Mine went astray, but it's a big fat R (which tells me absolutely nothing). Such is life.

Just arrived home. My notification didn't go astray, but sent by US mail. Waiting in my mailbox in my SASE when I got back tonight (postmarked June 30th). Unfortunately, it was still a rejection! Why do results only come out when I'm away? Do I have to take two trips every quarter now?

Joni's GREAT! My results are now in!

Although, I don't think she sleeps, because she went right out of her way and emailed me quite late to advise me that I actually hadn't entered Q1

How silly did I feel after all the hype and anticipation the 280 days of build up for this quarter delivered.

But I did enter Q1.

On the second day, way back in November, I received acknowledgement to that effect, and there you go.

It would seem the submission machine has some flaws.

OMG. I think I'd barf if she'd told me that. (Sending you a psychic hug)

It would seem the submission machine has some flaws.

I had some issues trying to submit for this quearter too, and had to try multiple times online. I made sure joni was aware at that time and hopefully they've found and fixed whatever was wrong. Doesn't help you much though, I know. So sorry to hear that, David!

JD,
You may enter the story as often as you wish, but the consensus is not to as in theory you've moved on and written something better.

However, at times, the story or the writer his/herself has grown sufficiently as to warrant a resubmission.

MO Muriel won last year with a resub of a reworked rejection.
I believe "The Hangar Queen" from a few years back was also a resubbed reject.

D

Wow. I feel so much like a kid who has wanderd into an adult conversation. you guys know so much more about all this than me! I should be coming to you guys for advice.

In fact... Jumping on Martin's bandwagon... I too am planning a collection to e-publish, hopefully in the next few months. I believe the rights to these stories remain with us, right? so if you have a winning story you can still publish it yourself elsewhere? (not that I'm too confident about facing the competition here, but generally speaking.) Also, i know some of you guys are getting e-sales already. How's that working out? Not being Stephen King or some other house-hold name, do little folks like us still manage to get sales online?

JD,
You may enter the story as often as you wish, but the consensus is not to as in theory you've moved on and written something better.

However, at times, the story or the writer his/herself has grown sufficiently as to warrant a resubmission.

MO Muriel won last year with a resub of a reworked rejection.
I believe "The Hangar Queen" from a few years back was also a resubbed reject.

D

Wow. I feel so much like a kid who has wanderd into an adult conversation. you guys know so much more about all this than me! I should be coming to you guys for advice.

In fact... Jumping on Martin's bandwagon... I too am planning a collection to e-publish, hopefully in the next few months. I believe the rights to these stories remain with us, right? so if you have a winning story you can still publish it yourself elsewhere? (not that I'm too confident about facing the competition here, but generally speaking.) Also, i know some of you guys are getting e-sales already. How's that working out? Not being Stephen King or some other house-hold name, do little folks like us still manage to get sales online?

Oh Jeremy, welcome to the dark side The others will come on and open your eyes to self-publishing, but yeah, some of them make decent and some even still above that...and yeah if you put up only a few things and let it sit there then people have found it doesn't work as well....so if you're able to put things up on a consistent basis then you can usually create a fan base.

I personally don't have experience with it, but some of the others on here have found some great success with it (and like anything, you'll also find people who don't feel it pans out...just depends on what's right for you. Self-pubing is definitely more for the writer who's willing to wait out the long term to see returns).

I think as far as the stories that win, you might have to wait a year or two before you get the rights back to be able to publish? I'm not sure on that at all, I've never seen a contract from WOTF. I've only ever had one non-fiction contract that allowed me to to have immediate publishing rights to my own story and not have to wait a certain amount of time.

Wow. I feel so much like a kid who has wanderd into an adult conversation. you guys know so much more about all this than me! I should be coming to you guys for advice.

We all learn from everyone, Jeremy. I had a more profound quote than that, but it slipped my mind. But learning is continuous, especially in a business that's changing as fast as this one.

In fact... Jumping on Martin's bandwagon... I too am planning a collection to e-publish, hopefully in the next few months. I believe the rights to these stories remain with us, right? so if you have a winning story you can still publish it yourself elsewhere? (not that I'm too confident about facing the competition here, but generally speaking.)

First, and most important... I am not a lawyer. I am most especially not your lawyer. This is not legal advice, just my understanding of copyright. Never take legal, medical, dental, or car repair advice from strangers you meet on the internet.

Now that that's out of the way... Not having won, I'll have to leave it to former winners to speak to the details of the anthology contract; but as a general rule of copyright, you never sell your rights, you just license them. The difference can be subtle, as some publishers prefer contracts that come as close to ownership as the law permits. It all depends on the contract. Typically the contract includes a specified set of rights for a specified period of time; and you retain all rights outside of that.

So let's take a HYPOTHETICAL contract. This is not the contest contract, just an example. Suppose that contract specifies exclusive worldwide English rights for print and electronic text for 2 years. That would mean that:

* For 2 years, no one else can print the English version of your story, either on paper or online or in ebook format. No one else, including you.

* After 2 years, you can print the English text yourself, or relicense it.

* Within the 2 years, you could license a translation into Japanese.

* Within the 2 years, you could license an audio book.

* Within the 2 years, you could license a graphic novel (though I'm not sure precisely how this would work, since the graphic novel text would overlap the story to a significant extent).

Those are just some examples.

Also, i know some of you guys are getting e-sales already. How's that working out? Not being Stephen King or some other house-hold name, do little folks like us still manage to get sales online?

NOTE: All numbers below are made up for examples. No promises are implied here.

The trick, as Dean Wesley Smith explains it (as have many others), is to break away from the "book as produce" model. That's how big publishers think of a book: it's a piece of fruit on a shelf, and it goes bad after 6 to 12 weeks. Either it sells big, or it's a failure. But they don't mind if your book spoils, because they sell a lot of books by a lot of authors, churning those shelves all the time. A big publisher would rather a book sell 10,000 copies this month and then nothing after, as compared to selling 20,000 copies over the next year. Why? Because they've already scheduled that shelf space for next month. They don't plan on sales after that first month.

In the modern world of digital and POD, books don't spoil. A book can stay available to readers for years and years, and build an audience over time. You as an author would be MUCH happier with 20,000 sales in a year than 10,000 in a month and 0 for the rest of the year. So that's the tradeoff: you have to choose to take a chance on the long game. If you want the quick sales, you want to go traditional. Of course, nothing -- N*O*T*H*I*N*G -- in traditional guarantees those quick sales, and nothing guarantees the long game sales when you go Indie.

But where the big publishers have the right idea is they have lots and lots and lots of books for readers to choose from. If your book spoils, they'll just as happily sell the reader a different book. So they can make more money than they could if they bet only on a single book. And that's what you should do, too. If you decide to go Indie, plan to put out a lot of material. Don't waste a lot of time promoting when you could be writing. Promotion as an activity is chasing those quick sales, and it's a losing game. The best promotion for your last book is your next book, and vice versa. As you build readers, you want them to find new stuff when they look for it. Readers don't want to have to wait. Oh, for a favorite author, they WILL wait, but they don't want to. For a new author they're just getting to know, waiting means they'll forget you.

A very promising strategy is to do both traditional and Indie. It gives you more choices; and your Indie work feeds the demand when readers find your traditional work and want more. (As a rule, traditional work takes a LOT longer to come out than Indie does. I can release an Indie book days after finishing it. In traditional, it can take a year. Or more.)

For a lot more from the people who taught me this, I recommend you read:

Dean Wesley Smith

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Sarah A. Hoyt

Follow some of the links there, and you'll find others with even more advice.

Is Indie easy? Nope. Neither is traditional. But people make both work.

As far as the contest goes, I believe I remember Brad saying the rights reverted upon publication.

And Holly, I hadn't thought about the multiverse! Yes, we can all win.

OMG. I think I'd barf if she'd told me that. (Sending you a psychic hug)

Thanks Ronda - after a sleep, all was well And I have a Q4 almost ready to sub

I had some issues trying to submit for this quarter too, and had to try multiple times online. I made sure Joni was aware at that time and hopefully they've found and fixed whatever was wrong. Doesn't help you much though, I know. So sorry to hear that, David!

JD, I'll be more on my toes, and making sure this time

I just hope that they have fixed it, which based on earlier emails Joni sent out, I think they probably have made improvements.

I'm sure you'll be OK to e-mail her after subbing and ask her to double check, double confirm.
Reply to the last e-mail she sent you to jog her memory.

D

As far as the contest goes, I believe I remember Brad saying the rights reverted upon publication.

And Holly, I hadn't thought about the multiverse! Yes, we can all win.

That's correct, though they do ask that you request permission to republish as a courtesy. It's only a courtesy though.

As far as the contest goes, I believe I remember Brad saying the rights reverted upon publication.

And Holly, I hadn't thought about the multiverse! Yes, we can all win.

That's correct, though they do ask that you request permission to republish as a courtesy. It's only a courtesy though.

Given the courtesy they show the winners, that's hardly a lot for them to request.

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

Today I learned that if you kick and scream loud enough Mike Resnick will appear to stop by.

As far as the contest goes, I believe I remember Brad saying the rights reverted upon publication.

And Holly, I hadn't thought about the multiverse! Yes, we can all win.

That's correct, though they do ask that you request permission to republish as a courtesy. It's only a courtesy though.

I think that's a fairly standard publishing-industry courtesy in any case, isn't it? At least, I'm fairly sure it is in the world of academia.

Reporting in from Jury Duty (until I have to go into a court room):

WOW!! Mike Resnick came by. OK, back to writing...

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

Today I learned that if you kick and scream loud enough Mike Resnick will appear to stop by.

Shh, I'm trying to keep it from the alligator or she'll have one huge attention-seeking tantrum of dinosaur extinction event proportions.

First, and most important... I am not a lawyer. I am most especially not your lawyer. This is not legal advice, just my understanding of copyright. Never take legal, medical, dental, or car repair advice from strangers you meet on the internet.

Holy smokes, thanks for the good advice! and the bit about publishing too, that was nice...

No really, i really appreciate the good long response. again, glad i'm coming to those who know better than i do.

from my persepctive, I've been trying to get into "traditional" publishing for a good ten years. I have 3 "small-time" credits to my name, producing a grand total of $10 (not that the money was the important part, but that shows the scale here). My original thinking on moving onto the miracle doorway that opened with self e-pubbing was that if i can generate some meager sales on my own maybe the big publishers/agents will give me a shot on my other stuff. still a nice theory but now... now i'm thinking that chances are they still won't care and i'll just be turning everything out myself. and that can work too. we'll see. i actually have enough stories to make a collection, which is the book i'd be casting into the water first, and two novels written over the last 9 years or so that i was hoping to get in the bigtime. but i guess we'll see how things go.

Thanks also for the nice rendition of how the bigtime works. it makes sense, the whole one-month on the shelf thing. I also know that there is such a small percentage of those who break in that it's like playing the lottery, though you can get a little more favor from the odds.

I hadn't thought of the "produce more books rather than put alot into promotion" thing, but that makes sense too.

overall, THANKS BOOK GURU!

Jeremy

As far as the contest goes, I believe I remember Brad saying the rights reverted upon publication.

And Holly, I hadn't thought about the multiverse! Yes, we can all win.

That's correct, though they do ask that you request permission to republish as a courtesy. It's only a courtesy though.

I think that's a fairly standard publishing-industry courtesy in any case, isn't it? At least, I'm fairly sure it is in the world of academia.

And thanks for this bit too, folks. I think it's been at least a year since my last story appeared but i should let everyone know. and HOPEFULLY will have to exclude my Q1 story. Of course it may be Q1 of next year by the time we find out... (sorry. being patient, being patient, being...)

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

and i won't embarrass myself by admitting that i don't know who that is.

oops.

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

and i won't embarrass myself by admitting that i don't know who that is.

oops.

Mike Resnick is legend. He's won more awards for short fiction than any one. Ever. I think he holds the record for Hugo nominations too. This year's nomination is "The Homecoming"

He's also one of the authors who judge the 8 finalists here in WotF. And he's got an advice column for writers if you wanna learn more about the business: Ask Bwana

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

and i won't embarrass myself by admitting that i don't know who that is.

oops.

No worries! I didn't know who half the big names were until I started hanging out on this board.

Jury Duty Update: I got excused. They had four trials and it looks like only one made it as far to get a jury trial. They had enough people in the court room to supply them the jurors. I'd served on a jury three and a half years ago and it was a fun experience...but not in the stars today. I got over 500 usable words while sitting there for the hour and a half in my crampy little chair that I had to steal after standing for an hour waiting for a seat to open up.

I'd never heard of him until I joined these forums either, Jeremy.

Yep, that's a pretty good deal.

...Did anyone else notice that Mike Resnick stopped by?

and i won't embarrass myself by admitting that i don't know who that is.

oops.

/ahem

http://mikeresnick.com/

and i won't embarrass myself by admitting that i don't know who that is.

No worries! I didn't know who half the big names were until I started hanging out on this board.

I'd never heard of him until I joined these forums either, Jeremy.

Er . . . Hope I didn't sound snobby. "Homecoming" made my get all weepy, so I've been looking for an excuse to repost it.

Er . . . Hope I didn't sound snobby. "Homecoming" made my get all weepy, so I've been looking for an excuse to repost it.

I've stopped worrying about it. It makes me jumpy.

To be fair, I didn't know who a lot of these guys were either. I've never been much of a fan of some of the deep genre stuff, well, not until I started writing seriously.