Thunderquill - Feather Journal, Author's 101

Sharing Your Story with Thunderquill

Thunderquill Article - January 2007

Are you thinking of sharing your story here at Thunderquill? That's wonderful, because we'd love to have you. But there are a few things you need to know before you publish your work in The Thunderquill Guest Author's Library. First of all, when you post your story in our pages, you will be published. But in terms of publication rights, what does this mean? Well, if you haven't published your story anywhere else, you're essentially granting Thunderquill first publication rights, or what is also referred to as First Serial Rights or North American Rights, which means you would be unable to sell these rights at a later time on the same story. If you have published your story elsewhere and still maintain ownership of your copyright, you're granting Thunderquill what is called One-Time or Simultaneous Rights. Such licencing allows you to publish your story in more than one publication after First Serial Rights have been spent. Considering the difference between the two types of rights, you may wish to publish only stories that have already been published elsewhere like on your own site, personal blog, another forum or a paper publication.

Now if you're just starting to make your way out into the writing world, you may not be able to find very many avenues for paid publication, which is why this library was established to begin with. However, many of the new opportunities for paid writing are popping up on the internet. And some of these websites are directly affiliated with a paper publication or magazine of the same name. But the competition for many of these publications can be fierce, even though on an average they only pay one to three cents a word regardless of what rights they're buying. And many of them are so backlogged with submissions, they only accept new ones intermittently.

Of course, if you're new to the practice of the quill, you may want a venue where you can figure out what type of writing you'd like to do and experiment with how to do it. And in a place like Thunderquill, you can test out different styles of writing, or try out different genres to see how each one captures and inspires your imagination. This is often the most important process a writer will go through. A potential author may have a talent for the pen, but more often than not they need the time and the place to find their voice and their own special way of telling stories. With the very lucky it can take only months, with most others, years. Usually the first special place, is a private place where a developing writer may tarry for quite some time. But you and your pen have to make it out the door eventually and Thunderquill offers a place for this extended exploration into new realms, allowing you to make mistakes and grow as a writer and story teller.

However if you're still in that special private place, there is another way you can share your story with Thunderquill without publishing it in our libraries or journals. On the Thunderquill Contact Page, we're accepting flash-fiction and short story submissions, for award consideration. You will also receive valuable feedback for your piece, often a service you'd have to pay for with other writing sites. For an author who has just started circulating their work in writing contests, this can be particularly useful, because their story can win an award without being published, therefore retaining its eligibility for other competitions that don't accept previously published material.

In any case, what you do with your story here at Thunderquill is up to you. As long as you own the copyright to your work, you may publish anything you like. You have full control over the publishing process and may go in and edit your piece after publication, or remove it from our libraries at anytime. But if you just need a place to grow, you might find this the perfect soil to start planting the little seedlings for your special story telling gifts.

The Writer's Market or The Writer's Bible - Get One, Now!

Thunderquill Article - November 2006

Are you looking for ways to get your articles and stories out into print? Then what are you doing fooling around on this web site? Run out right now and buy yourself the latest edition of The Writer's Market. It does tend to run a bit high in price, but for the oodles of valuable information it provides it's well worth it. There are many pretenders but there's only one original. Packed with listings for publications, publishers, agents, contests and general How-To advice for those flying on the quill, The Writer's Market has evolved into the one-stop bible for authors of every kind. Still it's surprising how many writers don't know about this valuable tool. In fact, it doesn't matter what type of writing you do, chances are there are market listings for it, maybe even a whole chapter. You'll find listings for almost every category of writing from poetry to politics, business manuals, fashion, legal, genre fiction, magazine articles, children's stories, screenplays and so on.

Just remember, once you acquire this handy little book, (alright, it's really the size of a small phone book), research all the listing information, web sites and publication guidelines before sending off your query letters, submissions or contest entries. And if you're ready to sell your work, be sure of what type of rights the publication in question is actually buying. The Writer's Market has so much information, its editors are hard pressed to make sure every listing is entirely accurate and up-to-date, so it falls on the writer to cover these bases. Just remember, as a little fledgling in the realms of the quill, you're going to make mistakes and go through a lot of postage stamps along the way and that's okay. Just don't take the plunge without your Writer's Market floatation device.

Cover Your Cute Little Tushy or Protect Your Work

Thunderquill Article - November 2006

Alright, somewhere along the line some guy who's name you can't remember, told you that the best way to protect your finished stories and articles was to put them into an envelope and send them to yourself. And in some third-world countries this may still work. But let me tell you a couple of other ways for guarding your work that are a great deal more effective. Besides, if I can do anything for a fledgling writer, it is to tell them the best way to properly protect their creative efforts.

And how do you do that exactly? Register your manuscript with either the Library of Congress or the Writer's Guild of America. It's that simple. And the Writer's Guild of America offers you the option to register your work on line at a considerably lower price, saving you a lot of time and postage. I tend to register my work with the Writer's Guild East at a cost of about twenty dollars per manuscript. But if you're a member it's only around ten dollars.

However becoming a member of the Writer's Guild simply isn't a matter of joining up. You have to remember it is a professional writer's guild, so an author has to sell their work as a professional before being offered guild membership. But as luck would have it, they also allow non-members to register their work. If you do this on line, they have you upload your stories in RTF or some other excepted format and keep in their database for ten years. To make things easier you can put it on your credit card and few days later you'll get a nifty little certificate of authorship that's suitable for framing and for some odd reason makes you feel more like a professional author. But the important thing here is protecting the copyright to your story.

But what is copyright exactly? Does your work have to be registered somewhere, for you to be afforded the protection of copyright? The answer is No. The law specifically states, your copyright is in place the moment the work is created. Registration with official bodies like The Library of Congress or The Writer's Guild of America, only provides additional registered proof that you created the work. But copyright only covers your stories and articles as they've been specifically written, word by word. Only in the rarest of instances, can it effectively protect story concept, if the concept appropriated by the offending party, was duplicated it down to the finest detail. And I do mean, the finest detail such as sequence of events in the storyline, characters and very specific qualities of the story such as mood, genre, style and setting.

As I ponder the history of writing, I can tell you that almost every story has been written. Often what makes a story special is the particular prospective of its author. It's your prospective that makes it special. And I hope I've provided the basic information you need to protect it.