Authorstand.com - can anyone advise me about this site please?

dora

Hello

If a story appears on here, which I believe means it is downloadable to the world and his wife:


http://www.authorstand.com





is the story considered as published?

Betsie

Sorry Dora, don't know.

Phots Moll

It depends who's doing the considering. If (for example) a competition stated entries must not have been previouly published then I wouldn't imagine they'd be happy about the work being on that site.

Personally I'd consider it more like self published as it appears anyone can post anything - the work is not selected.

heather

I would say yes, but different comps or magazines may have specific criteria, so one may consider it published and another not.
If there was some way of showing it hadn't been downloaded and it was withdrawn from the site maybe that would be acceptable.
Did you have a particular market in mind?

dora

[quote=MrsSnaps]I wouldn't imagine they'd be happy about the work being on that site. [/quote]

That's just it as I think I've found a winner to a competition on Authorstand.com, has won a comp despite it being stated they don't want entries that have been published before.

I am not talking about Erewash Writer's comp btw, the one I recently organised but another comp organiser who sent me their comp results recently.

dora

[quote=heather]but different comps or magazines may have specific criteria, so one may consider it published and another not.[/quote]

I didn't realise that.

How confusing.

heather

It is.

For example, some comps may state that publication on a personal blog doesn't count, others that any online publication is publication proper. If you - and anyone else who wanted to - were able to read this story in advance of the comp results coming out, and it's not a private site, then IMO the story was published.

Someone recently queried Woman's Weekly on their guidelines page about a story that had been online and whether they would still accept it as unpublished. The response was they could discuss it and it would depend on how may people may have read it.

danfango

I get the impression most places consider that if you've made your story (or poem, article, etc) available online, then that counts as being published. Most of those will say that if it has been workshopped in a private internet forum (one that you need a password to access) then that wouldn't count as published as it isn't available to the general public.

The one grey area is perhaps the time at which the guidelines apply. For instance, should the story be unpublished at the time of entering the competition, at the closing date, when the results are announced, or when the anthology is published and/or the winning stories are uploaded to the website? Very few competitions make it explicitly clear whether they are after first publication rights or not.

I usually play it safe and don't publish anything competition-ready online anywhere, and once something's in one competition, I consider it locked down until the results are announced. I'd hate to be stripped of a prize because the organisers found my work somewhere else, but then if they say they want unpublished work, that's what they should get.

Carol

[quote=danfango]I usually play it safe and don't publish anything competition-ready online anywhere, and once something's in one competition, I consider it locked down until the results are announced. I'd hate to be stripped of a prize because the organisers found my work somewhere else, but then if they say they want unpublished work, that's what they should get.[/quote]

That's a good standard to work to Danfango, and one I agree with entirely.