Question: Can My Own Blog Get In My Own Way?
16 Dec
A reader writes:
I have always used my blog to gauge reactions to various experiments and writing styles, and I enjoy the immediate feedback inherent to self-publishing. But if I want to submit a story to a magazine, it’s likely that they’re going to want first publishing rights.
My blog isn’t particularly high traffic, so it seems silly that it would immediately disqualify a piece from more “real” publication: but apparently it does. (I’ve double-checked with a few publications, and even super small out-of-mom’s-basement kinds of publications take themselves so seriously.)
Am I missing something? Or is this just an awkward phase in the adolescent struggle between the virtual and tangible worlds? Do I prioritize a magazine who won’t get back to me for six months, tolerate simultaneous submissions, or even pay me *if* they publish my work — or do I damn The Man, throw the thing online and bask in immediate satisfaction?
I checked around with my editor friends and none of them seemed too concerned about assigning a story that had already been blogged about, as long as said blogging wasn’t exhaustive, well-trafficked or somehow seen as competition.
In other words, if you’re selling ads on your top-ranked parenting blog, then that post you wrote about getting your son to eat his veggies is probably not going to fly. If you have an anecdote on your personal blog about the same topic, then I doubt a magazine editor is going to hold that against you.
In fact, I was a little surprised by your question, because I would think that with 133 million blogs out there, finding a topic that hadn’t been blogged about would be almost impossible. The issue in the aforementioned (hack) example is not the blogging, but the eternal problem of finding a fresh approach to familiar material. (Perhaps Google Zeitgeist 2008 can help.)
Final thought:
If you’re using your blog to explore and experiment, please do limit yourself to exploring and experimenting. If your posts are too polished and put together, then that might be a turn-off to potential buyers. Even lazy editors want to leave their mark.
As far as fiction goes- I have read/heard that “they” (powers that be) don’t like to see things published “extensively” on blogs, but little excerpts etc are ok. Is that what you’d also heard Dennis?
That is what I’ve heard. I don’t know the protocol on poetry, but I imagine that a poetry journal (online or otherwise) would be even more uptight about your work being already available.
I’m one of the “they,” so I’ll chime in on this.
I’ve run up against this with one of our covers. It had appeared on an old, limited run anthology, but a simple search found it; very frustrating.
Two issues about this topic strike me, so it’ll be a long one.
First issue: Why we call blogs publication. My magazine, Electric Spec, buys First World Electronic Rights for four months with an option to archive. That includes blogs, per our attorney’s advice. This is because blogosphere is smaller than you might think, especially when it comes to “focus” blogs, like blogs on writing or publishing. Espec has thousands of readers who run in those same circles and they are very likely to let us know “Hey we saw that story before!” (They certainly let us know about typos and if downloads don’t work.) That makes us Look Bad.
Also, and this is a biggie, some blog programming companies actually own the content posted on blogs using their servers. You have to read the fine print, but it means that when you publish something, you are essentially selling it (for free) to the blog company. I don’t believe Blogger is one of those; at one time I heard that MSN as a host site did own the content, as well as AOL. It’s worth checking.
That said, in my early days I bought two stories off blogs. One of those writers even became a good friend of mine. But, those pieces were only up a short while (less than a week) and I knew they had a very limited viewing as far as hits went. Buying was a decision my staff made, not one the author got to make.
We don’t count excerpts, (say 200 words) as pre-published. Even I sometimes put up excerpts on my personal blog. If you feel you must post an entire work to garner opinions, the simple solution is to remove it within, say, 48 hours.
But this leads into the second issue: which is the open critique. I’ve lost faith in using personal blogs as a vehicle for critique. First of all, blogs aren’t a very user-friendly vehicle for specific, line- item critique, which is what you should be after if you’re serious about your work. Secondly, readers are the equivalent of your friends. Most of them aren’t going to be entirely honest or nearly tough enough on your work. Also, these people are not vetted critiquers. You can run the gamut of people who know what they’re talking about to people who, in a word, don’t. I’ve seen those people lead good writers astray.
In the past, I used a couple of blogs for critique. They’re good to build a circle of people you trust, but I’d advise getting with vetted critters as soon as possible. The more rapport you develop and the more you read each others’ work, the more help you’ll be to each other. In my experience, critique is much more powerful and useful when it comes from someone whose opinion you trust, as well as someone who “gets” what you are trying to do. I recommend trading emailed, detailed critiques with those you trust (you’ll get as much out of critiquing others’ work as you do as getting it on your own).
Sorry so long. Hope that helps.
@bets: Thanks for the comment. I think we’re both getting at the same idea:
If you’re using your blog to self-publish in the truest sense, then that is what you need to do. Post polished pieces, build an audience and try to find a way to make money off the site.
If that’s not your goal, then the blog becomes a place to write AROUND ideas, while also building an audience or taking part in a community.
Extremely helpful. Thanks!