Would you allow your 75 stories to be published in a collection

[Moonbat]

Hello again everybody,

I am specifically addressing to the 147 people that entered the first year of the 75 word story competition, you know who you are.

As you may or may not know, we have discussed the idea of collating all the stories together into an anthology for publication, of the 42 people who voted only 2 said they wouldn't be interested in putting their stories into an anthology (although if I remember correctly one of them said they would they just voted no to be different )
Anyway, one of the main sticking points was the idea of editing, in that the stories would need to be edited (if only to remove spelling mistakes and obvious glaring grammatical errors) by an editor that actually put his/her name to the anthology. I then had the idea that we could use a wiki to edit the stories together: A private site that would have a page for each story and anyone with access (through a unique password) could edit the story (correct any errors they saw). I envisioned that edits would then have to be accepted by the author (in some cases an author might insist on a certain spelling style or placement of comma against the advice of his/her editing peers) hopefully after several months we might end up with a whole stack (possibly all 570) of stories that had been edited and were ready for the next step towards publication.

Anyway, I ran my idea passed Brian and he wasn't happy about the wiki being off-site, presently Chronicles doesn't have the ability to host a wiki and Brian is opposed to the potential disruption/problems/spam that it can entail. I have spoken to him about it and he has brought up a few other possible issues that I feel would need to be discussed/overcome before we could (possibly) proceed.

One issue was that people might not want to edit other people's stories. I assumed that some of us here (those with great gramma skills) would be happy to read through the stories and make some changes as they saw fit, but how do you guys feel about it?
I know some of you have said 'I'll sort out my stories myself' kind of thing, and although the wiki would allow that (and if someone else edited yours in a way you disagreed with you could not accept the change and keep it how you wanted) but I'm wondering if it goes through us all, and if people wouldn't spend the time editing stories other than their own?

Also there is an issue of copyright, I have never had the intention of taking anything without the owner's permission and I was expecting to have to send 146 personal messages to invite people/get permission to upload their entries, but I also have a worry about the site I'm planning to use (wetpaint) as to whether they will hold some kind of right over the content on one of their wiki's. I'm thinking of pm-ing The Judge about this as I think she might be better at understanding the legalese in the terms of agreement.

I should mention that Brian has hinted (no promises) that he would be willing to getthe Chronicles involved in publishing an e-book of the best stories, possibly around the start of the new year. I'm not suggesting that we don't publish 'through' the Chronicles, I'm only hoping that we can move the process forward and possibly get all the neccessary editing done before the end of this year, with the intention of publishing an e-book (or real book) for Christmas.

So, hopefully this can restart the debate and possibly move things forward.

 

[Parson]

Thanks for the update. I'm still in, and I'm still in awe of the amount of work you are willing to do to make this happen.

 

[mosaix]

Count me in, as before.

 

[Perpetual Man]

And me.

 

[Moonbat]

Thanks guys,

When you say you are in does that mean that you would be willing to use the wiki to edit other people's stories, only in terms of reading them and correcting any mistakes that you see, or would you stick to only editing your own?

 

[Boneman]

I'm in... happy to help out editing in any way.

 

[mosaix]

Thanks guys,

When you say you are in does that mean that you would be willing to use the wiki to edit other people's stories, only in terms of reading them and correcting any mistakes that you see, or would you stick to only editing your own?

I'd feel uncomfortable changing someone else's story - apart from say things like line spacing etc.

 

[Boneman]

If I edited a piece, I'd be more than happy to run it by the owner, in every case. I don't think there'll be much editing to do, will there? Most stories are spot-on, and only have typo's or apostrophes, don't they? (Note to self: go and read them and see...)

And it looks like you're doing a brilliant job, moonbat! I'm slightly concerned about the copyright issue being a problem as according to the rules:

Copyright in the entries is retained by their respective authors, who grant the SFF Chronicles Network the non-exclusive right to publish them on the site.

I'm very happy with the direction it seems to be going, and know b***er-all about data protection, except the way it relates to my business, but the copyright issue shouldn't be an issue.

Could always ask the anthology master - yes I'm looking at you Ian Whates, who recited a short story from memory at Alt.Fiction, and said it was the shortest story he'd ever written...!

 

[Moonbat]

Mosaix, I don't think you should worry about changing someone elses story, we are mainly talking about gramma/spelling and formatting, but any changes would have to be agreed by the author. I think we all agreed than any edits MUST keep the story within the 75 word limit, and we weren't keen on anyone making too big a change.

With regards to the copyright mentioned at the start of each competition, as long as I get permission from each author to post thier work it should be ok, my real worry is that the site I'm planning to use might have some rights over work posted on one of their wikis. As I said I'm reading through the terms of service and there is a worrying clause that mentions:

Although Wetpaint does not claim ownership of Submissions that its users post, by posting or submitting Submissions to the Site, you automatically grant and represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to Wetpaint an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, modify, adapt, publish, display, translate, and distribute said Submissions and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works said Submissions and to grant and authorize sublicenses (through multiple tiers) of the foregoing, including as set forth in Paragraph 7 below. Furthermore, by posting Submissions to the Site, as part of the Collective Content, you automatically grant Wetpaint all rights necessary to prohibit any subsequent prohibited aggregation, display, copying, duplication, reproduction, or exploitation of the Collective Content by any party for any purpose.

Which I think says that they have rights to put our work where ever they want to, which obviously wont do, even if the site is password protected and private I'm worried that they could take a story and re-publish it somewhere else without even asking us. I am still very keen to move forward with this, but I'm not going to jeopardise the anthology by allowing work to be 'published' elsewhere.

Also, as I have mentioned, Brian isn't keen with me doing this and I don't want to get banned from the Chronicles or cause any problems in any way, so we will (hopefully) keep discussing it and looking at possible ways to make it safe and not upset anyone.

Thanks for the replies and the encouragement guys, it does spur me on to know that some of you would be pleased if I managed to make this happen.

 

[chrispenycate]

I will do grammar and punctuation on anything (as some here might have noticed) but I will not, repeat not do anything to upset Brian. Not for fear of being slung out, but I consider he does such a splendid job here I want to spare him any problems I possibly can.

Oh, and while the poll has had forty four responses there have (according to my list) been one hundred and sixty eight contributors to the seventy five word challenge, some of whom have not even logged in recently. It only takes one uptight soul to cause real trouble, and not just with the book, for the entire Chrons. I don't say it's likely, but just "possible"is too much to risk.

 

[Boneman]

I will do grammar and punctuation on anything (as some here might have noticed) but I will not, repeat not do anything to upset Brian. Not for fear of being slung out, but I consider he does such a splendid job here I want to spare him any problems I possibly can.

And I know we all agree with that!

 

[HareBrain]

Which I think says that they have rights to put our work where ever they want to, which obviously wont do

As I read it, by putting the material on that site you only certify that you have the right to grant them those rights, not that you actually do so. In other words, you are only certifying that the work is yours (or ours). But it seems to be worded in such a way as to look as though you have granted those rights. There's definitely a whiff of weasel about it.

 

[Mouse]

Well apparently I voted 'no' for this, though I have no recollection of doing that.

 

[Colbey Frost]

Well apparently I voted 'no' for this, though I have no recollection of doing that.

Sounds like the beginning of a fantastic story with wizards, vampires and men wearing skirts. Go!

 

[alchemist]

I would happily check spellin, punktuation; and grammar, but only with the express permission of the author. In that respect, I feel we will fall well short of getting 100% of the entries.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, you know I'm in, of course.

And as I've mentioned previously, I'm perfectly happy to go through and put in my two cents' worth on the bits of editing that need to be done. I consider that to mean punctuation and typos in this case.

As for that legalese, we definitely don't want to grant them all of that! It does say that you warrant that you have the right to grant them all that stuff, but it also says that you automatically grant them all that stuff, including the right to publish etc. and the right to prevent any other publishing etc. Not good!

 

[Brian G Turner]

As mentioned before, I'm not keen on this idea at all, and it's grating to me to see it resurrected after my original reply earlier in the year.

The bottom line is that it's about taking a feature from chronicles, and someone making it their own for themselves. Whether there is commercial gain or not is irrelevant - it's still about taking from the community, rather than giving to it here on chronicles.

I've mentioned in private that one of my aims is to turn the front end of chronicles into a semi-pro or full professional online magazine (ie, paid contributions), and would like to make the fiction writing here a feature of that in regular issues. There is also the idea of putting the best from all the writing competitions into an ebook for free download, which can then be directly promoted with all the weight of chronicles behind it that I can muster.

However, these are long term goals with no definite timescale as yet - appreciate that running your own business through the worst economic crisis for a century can be a challenge, and it's my business that pays for chronicles and invests in it (I'm still getting the front end prepared for submissions for inclusion in Google News, which could significantly increase the visibility of all things chronicles).

I don't doubt that providing editorial help can be useful, but we already have tools for that via the Critiques board and other relevant General Writing discussions, for writers to improve their craft.

In the meantime, any attempt to take any part of chronicles and reproduce it on a third-party website without agreement from myself is always going to be very much frowned upon. After all, a key aim is to protect those who contribute to chronicles against those who would take away from the community.

In the meantime, this thread has run its course, and is therefore now closed.