Publishing rough drafts of your fiction on Steemit? No one else will ever accept it.

in #fiction6 years ago (edited)

For the past two years I've had a plan....

Publish rough drafts of my short stories on Steemit, then edit them and submit them for publication through various sources.

I've been compiling my stories, brushing them up, and sending them off to various magazines for the past week now.

It was finally time.

Some stories are better than others, but I think most of them are quite good.


Source: Pixabay.com

I've been excited to see if any magazines will accept my work. I know I should have started publishing them earlier, but I really wanted to get a large base of stories written. That way, I can easily send them out without having to worry about writing this one, or that one, quickly before a deadline.

Today I received my first email back from one of those magazines.

Rejected.

Well I really like that story, and I spent a lot of time on it, but you can't expect every story to get published. Even authors like Stephen King went through hundreds of rejection notices before some of the work got the attention it deserved.

However, in looking closely at the rejection notice something caught my eye that was very troubling.

We have found that this story was previously published here -

Link to Steemit

We are looking for original stories.

I replied stating that I was publishing the first drafts on this platform, in order to get feedback. However, the completed works are quite different than the drafts, and since I am the original author there should be no question that these are original stories.

Apparently Google says differently though. Google says that they are duplicates because they contain some of the same wording.

That is what these online magazines look for. I have now spoken to several different owners, or people that work for these magazines, and been told exactly the same thing.

If it's posted anywhere online then it is published regardless of whether or not you made any money when you posted it.

Your own blog? doesn't matter.

Needless to say, my plans are now pretty much on their head now.

I'm sitting here with several stories that I have edited, and made into nice little separate pages built for publication.

Looks like self publication is the only answer.

Remember not to make the same mistake that I did. You cannot post a rough draft online.

You can post a very short prequel that will then lead into the original work.

However, you cannot post anything that will become another story no matter how much editing you do to it.

Very frustrating.

Sort:  

You can always self-publish and hire a marketing team!

i wouldn't do it without the marketing team unless you're just doing it so that you can basically have a book in your own hand

i know that you said articles for magazines... buti'm talking specifically about your books :)

I'm making a book of short stories for amazon.com. I intend to self-publish there but I don't think I really need a marketing team unless you want to help me market it.

ohhhhhh you will. i have 3 published there. there are so many people fighting for the spotlight now that its so easy to self-publish.... that you really do need a team around you.
(unless you're an amazing salesman yourself?)

but i love to write - but cant sell myself. the chances that it will do well just because you publish it....(without some kind of team) is slim to none.

not impossible!!! but.... very very unlikely.

and you don't want me to market it hahahahaha i have tons of passion and everyone loves my energy.... and then.... i never seal the deal. i just dont' like bothering people to buy hehehehee

BS...is there a way to legally certify that is your or is it a google norm to just reject duplicates ... viva la steemit!

I know what you mean. For now Steemit is the way to go.

Yep. I ran into this on this platform, actually. I, like you, figured that since I already wrote it myself and it was on my blog (that I spent almost 4 years writing), Most of my first few uploads here were flagged by bots for plagiarism. I did mention on my blog that I also upload my work on Steemit, just to cover my bum.

Hoping you can find publishing success in the near future. :-)

We'll see how it goes. It's kind of weird isn't it?

Very. I never thought that plagiarism claims would escalate to this magnitude, but in a way I guess I understand where the platform is coming from because as technology becomes more sophisticated, so does the ability to jack someone's work and claim it as your own.

"You cannot post a rough draft online."

Good grief, I never knew. Thanks for telling us. :0

I guess you will go the self-publishing Amazon route now. Good luck! :)

Yep. We'll see how it goes. It's frustrating but there are lots of things in life that are frustrating. We'll work it out.

That is interesting to know. Sorry it happened to you though. Good thing there are options and you will have a choice about how you handle your future stories.

Yeah I want to see how it goes. It might be nice to do it this way. I would like to have a couple of magazines under my belt though. I guess I'm going to have to write some new stories and not publish them on here.

Yeah.... write a few more (saying that like writing a few more stories is easy like making a couple more sandwiches...LOL)..... and get them in the magazines and THEN you will have the creds to backup your own publishing.

This is a great heads for the rest of us. Thanks for sharing.

Definitely.

Holy crap seriously? I suppose it would be easy for people to plagiarize content here but it never occurred to me. I suppose you could prove to them somehow (tell them to send you a picture and create a post here with it or something) but most likely, they won't reply again.

I suppose STEEMit is better suited as a publishing platform where you can skip those mainstream publishers and get paid directly.

Either way, that is a good heads up for aspiring authors.

Yep. I guess it's not that big of a deal for me because I really publish two different kinds of content. Fiction, which is my forte, and motivational blogs which do fairly well. I will probably stick with the motivational stuff for at least a little while.

Wow really?? I never would have thought they will categorize social platforms to amount to publishing! Thanks for sharing.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Yeah I wouldn't have thought so either. It's kind of crappy.

It really is. Imagine putting effort into something brand new and then not getting published because ‘they’ saw a similar post on your personal Facebook status update!! That’s absurd.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Thanks for letting us all know that. It is indeed frustrating but better to find out before you had published any more of them !

Definitely. Maybe some others in the industry already know this information, but I think it's a good idea for those of us that are trying to work out there to understand that you have to keep it completely under lock and key even if it's a rough draft.

I'm sorry things didn't go as planned but I really hope you find success self-publishing. Who knows, it may even work out better this way.

It's possible. My friend's brother actually publishes erotica and makes a fortune doing it. I wouldn't be publishing that kind of stuff but I still see a better future in self-publishing than in many other fields.

A fortune? Good to know! Hopefully you'll have success in your genre too.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70351.33
ETH 3563.43
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.72