Subject: Some answers
Author:
Posted on: 2010-08-01 16:52:00 UTC
From what (little) I know, I'd say Elemarth is bang on the money. It helps to go the small-press route; plenty of independent publishers put out anthologies all the time, and they're always looking for contributors. A few publication credits in small journals will help build up her cred a little, and make an agent more likely to look at her query letter. Best to make sure they don't get exclusive printing rights for X years, though, and make sure she retains the right to anthologize them.
And for the love of God, tell her to avoid vanity publishers. Self-publishing is one thing, if she wants to just have a few printed for her friends and family, but outfits like PublishAmerica are absolute poison.
I don't think she'll be able to publish an anthology her first time. But short stories are easier to publish than novels. She should look around to see who is trying to create a collection of stories and then which ones she could submit one of her stories to. My guess is that publishing a whole anthology would be like publishing a novel, but in all my searches of agent queries lately, I haven't seen one query or one bit of advice about this.
Some people still post them. That is how I found the PPC. Indemaat had stories posted in NCIS, and I followed the links back to the PPC. That series has been on FFnet since the beginning of January. I am guessing that removal of PPC stories is seen to about as promptly as removal of trollfics.
when I get around to editing.
I have PPC stories dating as far back as february 2006 on FFnet.
The thing about getting removed is that A) someone has to report you; and B) someone from FFnet has to make time to slough through the pile of abuse reports and act on the report.
I don't think the staff of FFnet matches up to the size of the site, and fic with a G rating with MA content takes precedence in getting deleted. Or maybe that report just came in at a lucky concidence that someone had time to read it.
It's not a great plan, at any rate.
As to why they don't like us, I can't say for sure, but it's almost certainly something to do with the sporking. They could be tetchy about how we use the fragments of other works within our stories, or they could be annoyed about the killing of other people's characters.... eh, there's probably something in the terms of service.
Basically in the long run it's a whole lot easier and all that to host missions on LJ, freewebs, or whatnot. FF-net is more trouble than it's worth in this regard.
There's something in the guidelines about us all being aspiring writers, so we need to respect each other, and the PPC isn't entirely respectful. Most people use LJ or their own site.