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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bardsandsages" data-source="post: 3445856" data-attributes="member: 28771">I never implied anyone was trying to take advantage of anyone.  I made a suggestion, and it sort of steamrolled from there.  Geesh, even when I'm not deliberately trying to cause trouble, I cause trouble!My initial comments were meant simply to raise awareness.  If you are walking into a project like this eyes wide open with no delusions of what it really is, certain do as you see fit as far as submitting work.  Putting together an anthology can be a rather enjoyable experience (as I mentioned earlier, I've done two).  But it can also be very frustrating and dissappointing if folks on both sides aren't 100% clear about what they are expecting.  The initial post was posted as a "paid" listing, but it is not really a paid offer.  And while the publisher is not trying to steal anyone's copyright (and I never implied such), they are asking for first-time rights, which should rarely be given away for free.  For those that wonder about the difference:   copyright always remains with the author, unless the author specifically gives it away.  What you sell a story are actually selling certain rights to use the copyright material, but the copyright is always yours.  Most paying markets are either only interested in purchasing first-time rights, or pay a lower rate for reprint rights.  So if you give away a story now, you could find yourself having a hard time finding a paying market for the story later.  Sometimes when you are struggling to get credits under your belt, you don't think about this, because you just want to see your name in print.  But I know many writers who have regreted not thinking the process through a bit more thoroughly before giving their work away.  In fact, what a lot of people don't realize is even posting your poems or stories ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE could disqualify you from certain markets, particularly if the market is requesting First time electronic rights (meaning the story would appear for the first time in electronic format).  And so writers should think it through before offering to give away their work, and potential publishers should think it through before asking writers to do so.  By initial comment was simply that if submissions were also open to previously published material, it would give a writer the option to determine how they wanted to participate in the project without having to default to giving away first-time rights.And particularly when dealing with a project that will, by the publisher's own admission, have a limited release, I still question not opening the project up to previously published works.  I do take writers and writing very seriously, I'm a writer first in my mind.  I mentor, and I serve as a regional rep for the International Women's Writing Guild.  The internet has created this free-for-all mentality in publishing where anyone with an internet connection can claim to be a publisher, and I have heard horror stories from writers regarding the embarassment of seeing their work in a project they thought was from a traditional publisher that turned out to be some vanity press or amateur fiasco (and no, no, no, I am NOT implying anything!  Just speaking generally).  And so I try to at the very least raise awareness of what writers and aspiring publishers should and should not expect out of each other, if for no other reason that for many they genuinely don't know.  Once the information is out there, it is up to the individuals to determine what they want to do.G7--I still want to know where the wizard art came from!</blockquote>

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