First question: If a short story is published by a small private-school's academic journal that explicitly states it collects no right and only makes a tiny print run (and has no on-line presence) does that really count as "previously published" or not?
Second question: How would you react if the following happened to you: I sent a version of the above question to a magazine whose website says "no reprints without querying first." I think my first mistake was thinking that the statement meant "query whether a previous publication is something we'd consider a reprint." I sent a very brief email asking if a story I'd printed in the described circumstances would be considered a reprint. I did not really "query" in the publishing sense. I got back this response: "- thank you for letting us see your shot story. Alas,as per our guidelines, we don't accept published stories -- we receive a large number of unpublished stories, so to be fair to other writers, we can't make excpetions to our policy. Please feel free to submit again with a new story." (sic) Typos and weird form(?) response aside (I did not send them my "shot" story, or any short story), why would you put that on your website if the policy is "no reprints," something I've seen written clearly in plenty of places. What am I not understanding??
How am I supposed to feel about this? I'm not trying to name names, but the magazine in question has been around for a LONG time, and the person's name on the email is... a published writer, I googled them. Their name is mentioned here a few times. I just can't get over the quality of the response from something and someone I'd think would do better. Do people get this sort of ridiculous response very often? Am I just not understanding something? Do editorial types not proofread?
Ok, I feel better to have gotten that out there now. Thanks.
Second question: How would you react if the following happened to you: I sent a version of the above question to a magazine whose website says "no reprints without querying first." I think my first mistake was thinking that the statement meant "query whether a previous publication is something we'd consider a reprint." I sent a very brief email asking if a story I'd printed in the described circumstances would be considered a reprint. I did not really "query" in the publishing sense. I got back this response: "- thank you for letting us see your shot story. Alas,as per our guidelines, we don't accept published stories -- we receive a large number of unpublished stories, so to be fair to other writers, we can't make excpetions to our policy. Please feel free to submit again with a new story." (sic) Typos and weird form(?) response aside (I did not send them my "shot" story, or any short story), why would you put that on your website if the policy is "no reprints," something I've seen written clearly in plenty of places. What am I not understanding??
How am I supposed to feel about this? I'm not trying to name names, but the magazine in question has been around for a LONG time, and the person's name on the email is... a published writer, I googled them. Their name is mentioned here a few times. I just can't get over the quality of the response from something and someone I'd think would do better. Do people get this sort of ridiculous response very often? Am I just not understanding something? Do editorial types not proofread?
Ok, I feel better to have gotten that out there now. Thanks.