Posting Your Stories

Original Post: 4 March 2014
Posted and Updated Here: 29 November 2017

Until recently, my Stellar Economics Community website had a page where all of my short stories written were listed along with a short synopsis of each. Readers could click on any title to open a PDF sample, the first few pages, of each story.

I recently received an email in response to a short story which I had submitted. The message was something like this:

As your story is currently available online at https://stellareco.com/Short%20Stories/ring16ss.pdf, we cannot accept it at this time - We only accept works that are not currently available in any form elsewhere. However if you remove it from that website (and anywhere else it may be), we'd be happy to consider it.

I was already aware that few venues want writing that has already appeared elsewhere. Posting a story to the web is usually considered as "publishing" the story.

While I was still teaching at South Arkansas Community College, the English faculty were considering some software that searched the internet for text similar to that submitted by a student. They hoped to detect plagiarism with this software. I presume that the magazine where I submitted my story uses a similar program. Unfortunately, such a program does not distinguish between a story and a piece of a story.

My first action upon receiving the email was to temporarily change the file name of the sample so that it would not be available while the story was under consideration. Then it dawned on me - perhaps many prospective markets use software like this, and some might just reject my submission out of hand instead of contacting me when their software reports an online match.

So, I have removed this "synopsis and sample" page from my website.

As they say, "A word to the wise is sufficient."

Keep reading/keep writing - Jack