Blog: A Writer's Warning

I've heard the stories, but never had the experience. As soon as a writer gets some name recognition, she is approached by a publisher who wants her work. In fact, that's pretty much our dream, isn't it? To get people coming to us, asking for our work, instead of us pushing our work out to them. Which makes the following so dangerous to your writing career.

I got an email inviting me to promote my work on someone else's website. At first, it excited me. The way I initially read the email was that they wanted me to post a blog. But I have been so busy lately that I've developed the habit of walking away from emails like this, letting them stew, and then coming back to review them later. And it's a good thing I did. Allow me to share:

"Hello,

My name is XXXX YYYYY and I am a Featured Writer for ABC magazine (website here) and Director of a spinoff site called ABC Lit (website).  Lit is devoted to promoting published authors and aspiring writers through daily posts.  If you would like, we'd be happy to feature your work on the site to give a little added publicity.  There is no cost for this; just a writer trying to help others.

If you're interested, feel free to message me or send me an email at XXXXy@abcmag.com.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you."

As I said, I initially read this as a "post a blog," then I went to the websites. The sites are very well rendered, the stories featured have wonderful covers, and … there are no blog posts. One site has a magazine that appears to be focused toward fashion and current fashions, which really confused me. The companion lit site is all stories, one published a day. Neither site seemed to connect to each other. Then I found the submissions guidelines. Here's what they say:

ABC Lit is an affiliate website of ABC, Inc., the parent company to ABC Magazine, ABC Lit is committed to promoting published authors and offering aspiring writers a platform on which to promote their new work.

Submission guidelines for creative writing, poetry, short stories, etc.:

Please contact XXXX YYYYY at XXXXy@abcmag.com for any submissions or publicist/author promotion requests.

1. Original work only in the genres of fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, humor, literary news or short stories
2. Emailed submissions only with no attachments.  Emails can be sent care of XXXX YYYYY at XXXXy@abcmag.com
3. There is no monetary compensation for submitted and posted work, however ABC Inc. does not assume publishing rights.  All rights belong to that of the author.
4. At the request of the author, ABC Lit is able to link to websites, email addresses, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
5. Postings currently occur once a day, Monday through Friday.  Submissions may take several weeks to be posted, and the author will receive an email at the time of posting.
6. Every submission is also considered for publication in ABC magazine, a digital, page-flip publication currently being read in more than 50 countries.

Allow me to point out the most important parts of these guidelines.

1) The author is donating their work to this website. As in, this is a direct violation of Yog's Law (money flows to the author). In doing so, the author is losing first publication rights and exclusive publication rights since it's doubtful that ABC will ever remove the story from its website once the story is up there).

2) ABC Inc. doesn't acquire any publishing rights, not even non-exclusive publishing rights, which puts them in the cross-hairs of potential legal issues. Why? Well, they are publishing work that they have admitted they have no right to publish.

If you're the type of writer who doesn't want to get paid for your work, then by all means, go for one of these offers. I don't recommend it, however. Authors who tend to indulge these types of requests tend not to get high on a paying publisher's list. These sorts of things do not count as legitimate publishing credits to put on the resume. For what it's worth, I offer you this piece of advice. When someone comes after your work out of the blue, do your research. And in cases such as this, politely decline and continue submitting your work to recognized pro or semi-pro paying markets.