when an online journal goes under and takes your story down with it

You should definitely resubmit. You can always ask in your cover letter about any restrictions.

Adding--I posted too quick. Personally I would search Duotrope for reprint markets and see what happens.

reprint markets only, but yes, you can resub.

it WAS printed once; you wouldn't consider Carrie a new book tomorrow if the original publisher folded today, would you? Greater visibility, granted, but first rights means "first".

I am not sure the answer on this one. It would depend on the type of release form you have signed. Do you have a copy of it (even if it's in email).

How long has it been?

I know in print that if the circulation is less than a certain number you can sometimes resubmit elsewhere no problem. But, that's hard to track with a 'zine site (especially one that's down).

On the other hand, it could depend on the magazine. At one college where I worked, MFA students were in an uproar because the graduate school was going full digital (instead of printing bound copies of theses). Because anyone could go online and read their theses through the library electronic reserves, their work would be considered "published" and they could not submit it to SOME magazines (not all).

In order to fix that, they applied for a 3-year "embargo" to keep the work from going "live." It gave students 3 years to get that work published in magazines that would not otherwise accept it.

So, geesh, not sure. It's hard to say w/o seeing the contract.

I'm inclined to think that if YOU can't find it online, then nobody else can either. Have you tried the Wayback Machine to see if it can still be found?

If the story was actually published, first rights are gone forever. Just because a magazine folds does not mean you automatically get any rights back. Everything depends on the contract you had with that magazine.

Even in print, circulation size has nothing to do with it. You sell or give away certain rights. There should be a contract of some sort stating what these rights are. You have to live up to them, even if the magazine folds.

If there was no contract, chances are you sold only First North American Serial rights, so you're probably free to resubmit.

If you signed a contract selling more rights, you'll have to ask for them back, and the magazine owner will probably give them back to you.

The Lonely One said:

Thanks, James. And thank you everyone who responded. I didn't sign a contract (other than agreeing to publish with them via email). These are zines that typically publicize what rights they want on the actual website itself, which is now gone thus impossible to reference. When you say free to resubmit, you mean to zines who take reprints? Just for clarity's sake.

Click to expand...

"First rights" has nothing to do with what the now-vanished zine did or didn't claim. It means that you can no longer sell another publisher the right to be the first to make the story public, because it's already been shown publicly. You only get one "first" per story.

So, yes, when you resumbit, you are submitting it as a reprint.

Yes, it applies to any circumstances in which the story has been made public. Blog or otherwise.

Places like SYW don't count because they are password protected--therefore not available to the public-- and are for critique purposes (which means the final product is unlikely to appear there anyway).