A B N A Vets Forum How to add your writing to the..

In case you want to add something, all you have to do is click on "Writing" here, and you'll get a box where you can select anything you've already uploaded to your account.  I can't do it for you -- you gotta take the plunge.  Your work will appear on the "new writing" list in the group.

If you have a book you want folks to read and review, post the book to the "new writing" list, and all chapters you add will appear under that title, forever after.  That'll save some room for other people's work.  With the number of folks we have in our membership, it seems one item at a time for anyone on the homepage is the fairest, tidiest way to go about it.

 

 

I started the ball rolling with my third fantasy adventure novel.  I welcome any and all reviews.

 

Glad to see so many joining -- spread the word -- the more the merrier.

 

 

Hey there,

 

I would like to add writing, however, I would really only like to make it viewable to our ABNAvets group. Is this possible?

 

I see that this site is constructed to work on a points system. Since I have joined, I have had many requests from people outside of this circle wanting to be my "friend". However, I do not think I would value a strange persons review whom is doing this to score points...

 

I value the reviews that I would get from my circle.

 

The Super-Duper ABNAvets Squad!!!! GO TEAM!

 

:D

Hi Kimbro! :)

Why not put the writing you want to share into a single file, upload it at rapidshare.com and then post the link here in a thread dedicated to that particular text?

This way there'll be no other incentive to post one's opinion of it, while the text itself should stay fairly confined.

-Mike

Antmuscle:

The points others get from reviewing don't cost you anything.  Sure, you'll get lots of useless reviews, but you might get a gem, and be able to establish a read-review relationship with that person, even though it's outside the group.

The first writers' community I joined, Urbis, had a system where you earned points by reviewing and spent them to open your reviews -- that was a drag, until you established relationships with others -- lots of abuse, crappy reviews written just for points, etc.  I don't even know what the points are for here, except status.  If people want to earn them for essentially nothing, that's no skin off my nose, and I have the chance (slim chance perhaps) to meet other interesting writers by having my work posted to the general public.

But, I'll look in the moderator's options to see if we can make everything on the group private, if that's what the majority wants.

Hmmm, I'm not completely sure I would want to upload my writing here to be honest. I just had a look at the terms of service, and one particular paragraph didn't exactly tickle my fancy:

"Aresta Enterprise does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for via the Service, you grant Aresta Enterprise a perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, royalty free and non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify and publicly display such Content on the Service."

Not being able to pull online content you some day want to possibly sign a publishing deal for could become problematic, especially with written content moving to the digital, always-on domain.

I don't understand that stuff myself, but non-exclusive makes it seem fairly innocuous. Every post shows copyright belonging to the author.

 

Have you read the FAQs on the subject?

 

Any lawyers among us?

 

Leah

Well, actually I'm six years into my German law degree. While I'm not a lawyer (yet), this rings an alarm bell for me as far as my own future interests might be concerned.

The thing is, imagine written content moving online. Newspapers are well on their way for example, and with a kind of Kindle 2.0 that basically pulls literature on demand from an online resource, this method of distribution might become important to publishers a few years down the line.

And the customer? Being able to legally chose between the free or ad-supported Aresta version, readable on his PDA, iPhone, PSP, Illiad, eReader or Kindle 2.0 (which already is always-on in a way in v1 with its own EV-DO connection), and the priced or ad-supported version of the publisher, might forego the publisher. Tech-savvy readers with all the right toys and habits could skip the paper and stick with the LCD right off the bat. Why buy a cumbersome, expensive book if you can read the desired text on your iPhone for free, completely legal?

No publishing business would like this. Aresta could be eating into their profits, leeching of their marketing efforts and making money without having paid anything for the content or risking much along the way. The non-exclusivity of the Aresta agreement doesn't matter to the real publishers. Their own does.

Really, be careful of signing away too much. I don't know how publishing houses currently handle this, but I can foresee this eventually becoming a contractual obstacle. And our chances of signing a deal are slim enough as is, so why put some more tripwires in our way?

Especially for the ABNA entrants, I would advise you against making work you intend to sell available here, under those terms of service. Use other means.

Michael, you sound a bit paranoid.

 

What's posted here isn't final product, by any means.  Nothing I've got up here is fit for publication. I'd never post an entire work, in any case, even in first draft. The stuff here might be of some interest to scholars if I become a well-known writer.  It isn't competition for my published work, when such will exist.

 

But if you'd rather use some other means of peer-review, such as private email attachments, that's fine.  It's actually easier to review a Word document in a detailed way than it is to use the "notes" feature here.

 

 

I don't think I'm paranoid. Just laying out what could very well happen in contractual terms. It might be fine for samples, but I can't imagine any publisher interested in your work being very pleased with you having signed away rights to your work in this way. Hey, the WGA is currently on strike to get a slice of what money is being made online with their work. The media conglomerates seem to gear up their fighting for the online realm, so it might be a mistake to underestimate the importance.


Personally, I'm here for the discussion, but those interested in having their work reviewed on this platform should be aware of the implications.

I don't think there's anything to worry about.

 

You each hold copyright for what you upload.

 

You can delete anything at any time.

 

Even if deleted material is archived, there's little likelihood of anyone poking around looking for incomplete, unpolished drafts of your work in preference to buying your published novel.

 

I've never heard of agents or publishers objecting to the practice of online peer review, or regarding it as a hindrance to conventional publication.

 

If you want to participate in genuine peer review, don't hesitate to post your work.

I don't intend to be alarmist, but rather factual about it. It boils down to two very simple things:

1. You irrevocably give Aresta the right to perpetually distribute and display your work online.
2. Online content delivery is a rising trend. It might be of interest to literary publishers in the future.

Yes, you keep the copyright, but what's that worth to the publisher? Imagine yourself as the exec of a music label. You want to sign a band you've recently discovered that comes with a finished record. Yes, they have the copyright to their works, so you could start distributing it on your own. But then you discover that due to a past contract some online music site has the irrevocable right to perpetually play their songs online. Perhaps even make money with ads. Even pull it out of their backup records, long after the band closed their account and "deleted" the songs, and put it on rotation again if they so pleased. How would that fare for your online sales? Or for your own music subscription service? Would you sign the band? Pay them an advance? Use a part of your marketing budget on them?

Everyone is free to make up their own mind.

Online peer review is a valuable tool and activity that deserves support, but as far as work intended for sale is concerned, in my opinion writerscafe.com isn't the place for it under the current TOS. If asked eye-to-eye, I would honestly advise people to stick to work that's not supposed to be sold at some point.

That's all I really have to say on that. Everyone's free to disagree. Evaluate your own assessment, draw your own conclusions, decide on your own.

I hope every bit of fiction I write will be published, in some form, eventually -- I don't do exercises in composition -- I don't have the time, and my school days are long over.

 

Do you really believe that anyone -- anyone -- in the reading public is going to forego buying a conventionally published and marketed book they're interested in in favor of the partial, early drafts the writer submitted online for peer review? Please.

 

I think common sense will prevail, and we'll have some excellent work-in-progress to discuss here, and some excellent discussions.

Ah, so your position is "common sense"? I see. I just don't think it's good business sense, when you can share your work in so many other places without this drawback.
Well, I just have an opinion. One opinion.


Knock yourself out with whatever you want to upload here. It might only change the probablisitic fraction several digits behind the decimal point in its potential and ultimate outfall, but I'm sure the other writers will enjoy the benefit.


And do me a favour: Hit up the nearest lawyer/attorney you can reach and ask him whether you should give anyone any irrevocable, perpetual right to anything. Due to laughter he might run out of breath before answering. And he won't be completely laughing with you.

Hi Leah and all,

I finally have been able to load a portion of my ABNA excerpt on this site.  It's under New Writing.  CHAPTER 1:  ABOUT MY NAME.  From my novel The Prospect of my Arrival. 

Please see if you folks are able to open it.  I also added a mock up of a possible cover for my novel.

Dwight

An "iffy" subject. 

Some publishers demand to know if your work has been posted online at a public forum. (I'm assuming this does not apply to private critique sites but I can't be sure.) Obviously, if a novel is posted on line for everyone to read, it reduces the publisher's sales.

I also don't know how they'd react if a chapter of a novel appears here and remains in the archives even after the author has withdrawn it. Doesn't seem fair to me unless we're paid by the site for rights to keep the exerpt on file.

That whole 'go to last read post' doesn't actually work right. Please ignore the post I just deleted.

That clause in the ToS is yucky. I think it does specify 'displayed on the Service', which I guess is better than nothing.

But let's be honest. Do we have to be here? Are there other writing sites that don't have that kind of bullshit (and aren't covered with ads)? Are we deeply attached to the built-in mechanism for hosting our writing? I'm hesitant to volunteer because everytime I try to start a forum it dies, but I manage several domains wherein it would be the work of ten minutes to set up private non-ad-based forums.


 

If you're uncomfortable with the terms of service, by all means, don't use the site. I'd be sorry to see this group dissolve, just when it's getting going, and turning into a real critique group (something we all can surely make good use of.)  But if anyone has an alternative, and wants to manage it -- go ahead and set it up.

I still don't see a conflict between polished, published fiction, with distribution and marketing behind it, and the partial drafts of stuff we post here: I can't imagine anyone not purchasing the finished product, in favor of reading our early efforts on this website -- or buried in its archives.  I don't think agents or publishers see a conflict  either.

The group's here now, and I'm commited to tending it (there's not much to that, fortunately.)  Make use of it if you want to!

I'm not worried that somebody won't buy my work. It's  more the principle of the thing-- I'm easily irritated by an ad overdose and there's no REASON for WritersCafe to have that clause in their ToS except to be snotty.

I definitely don't want the group to dissolve, at all. I'm very happy to have finally found a smallish group of writers I'm eager to work with. That's why I was asking what we get out of this site and if we are really attached to what WritersCafe offers.

Well, the ads pay for the site, so we don't have to, and aren't very intrusive.  I don't pay any attention to them, really -- I happened to notice the ABNA ad because it was rather large, and at the top of the page all the time -- if it and I hadn't both been here, I never would have known about the contest.

I think that business about the site's rights to use our content is just so they can put it up here for review at all.  I don't really see what's snotty about it.

I don't think I feel like bouncing to another venue.  I've been using the facilities here for about a year, and never felt my rights to my work were compromised in the least.  I have friends here who are published, whose published work appeared here for critique initially, so I doubt there are any serious issues in that department.

If you do set up something else, Chrysoula, I'll check it out and do critiques, but I probably won't post any of my own stuff.  I've already got a library of it here, that's slowly gathering reviews, and a couple of really helpful readers who trade work for critique with me privately.

ABNAVets will remain open for business as long as anyone (even one Vet) wants it.

Why would I set something up if nobody else cares? It is something I'm offering to do if other people wanted it. I'm only likely to post things for review anywhere once in a blue moon, anyhow, because feedback on a work in progress damages my progress.

The ads pay for the site because somebody has to. Fortunately, I'm already paying for the domains I own, and I use a fraction of the traffic that I can handle. This site does not need to specify that the right to display the content is perpetual and irrevocable. Why would they do that?