Has anyone had a poem rejected by a magazine because it has already been posted online? Does anyone know what most poetry magazines' policy about this is?

I ask because I've recently submitted a couple of poems to magazines that I've already posted on here. In the very unlikely event that either of them are accepted, should I make it clear to the magazine that they have already appeared on WOL? I suppose I should.

This brings me to another question. Do people value appearing on WOL as much as appearing in print, less so, or more so? For one thing, more people would probably read you on WOL than the circulation of an average poetry magazine. And you get the inter-active feedback as well. Plus, if your poem title is unique enough, it goes to the top of Google. It seems no contest. On the other hand, there is that slim little magazine containing your name that you can put on your bookshelf, or give your mum a copy ... or maybe not, on second thoughts ...

I guess some people will say that the whole point of WOL is performance, not publication. Many of the best and most enjoyable performance poems do not read so well, or are maybe too long, for the printed page.

What I have found since joining this site is that it gets me thinking about poetry every single day. And never mind the occasional back-biting, the warmth, humour and encouragement more than makes up for the occasional outbursts which some might say only add to the entertainment.

Hi Greg

Thank you for this posting, containing as it does some valuable – and kind – feedback, and such fascinating questions. It really helps to get such feedback at a time when we beat ourselves up for not sorting things out better.

On the other hand, we know from forums (Word won’t let me type for a - see) on how to run forums, that everyone else who runs them gets the same problems

We don’t know about the <previously published> question. Personally, I don’t send my stuff off as I would not want to be published in any magazine that would have me as a contributor; or, do I mean, don’t think I am good enough?

Anyone help here?

The term ‘performance’ jars with me in the poetry context, although that is precisely what I do, mostly. That is because we set out to be a resource for people to, what? get started? find their voice? Enjoy sharing their writing? Yes, that mostly. Some ‘perform’, others read.

A line we use is that sharing your poems in public is a legitimate form of publication. That is to encourage our members to feel proud of their achievement, though perhaps more as a riposte to those who feel you are only a poet if you are “published” in a magazine. I have been published on a New York website and on a poster on Wigan Wallgate railway station for which a big thanks to John Togher) and am more proud of the latter really. Bricks and mortar beat paper to a pulp.

But we don’t intend that posting on here should be seen as being published for the purposes of magazines or competitions. Though it would be worrying to think that posting the latter would preclude sending the piece off to a magazine.

I don’t really understand why submitted poems cannot have been published elsewhere anyhow, especially for competitions. Perhaps someone could explain it to us?

There is also an interesting distinction to be made here, and it is one that is exercising our minds at the moment; between posting poems for comment, discussion, so forth – works in progress, perhaps – and posting a poem as a final, finished entity.

We are planning a major revamp of the website to enable different areas of the site to have different functions and memberships, one feature being to clarify that particular areas are for work in progress, with appropriate ground rules for those commenting - read carefull, all that.

The Google issue is fascinating – some people apparently now do it for fun – <my poem comes out top on Google, thanks to Write Out Loud>.

We probably have the stats for who reads what somewhere. We do know that there are around 9-10,000 unique individuals accessing the website each month, and many of them do go straight to the latest poem uploads.

Yeah, we don’t want rid of controversy, just like fewer people to be upset by it. Some of the polemics over the past three or four years have been of a cracking level of erudition. And we have some right barneys, too.

cheers

Hello Greg,
I have had some of my work published in magazines but I am very choosey who I submit to. My understanding is that unless you are entering a competition, that normally state that the work should have been previously unpublished, it is not a problem. A lot of my work is on my blog and isn't really open for everyone unless they know about its existence so the likelihood of anyone taking unbridge is low. Some magazines will also state "previously published in" etc etc.

Legally, broadcasting on radio or tv,or posting in a public forum e.g. WOL or a personal blog is considered as 'published', whether you have few or many readers is irrelevant. Therefore if a competition or publication states that work must not have previously been published, then it must not previously have been published anywhere it may have been seen (or read) by members of the public.
As far as blogging on WOL is concerned - if it is work-in-progress, and you alter something a little before submitting your finished work to a competition or publication, then you're fine.

Cx

Yes, competitions that state. "submissions mut not be published elsewhere" are likely to have a problem with poems you have on here. Not all competitions make this a condition however. There is a difference here which clouds the issue that being published on line usually means that your work has been chosen or accepted by another party who has put it on their site unlike WOL where it is you who decides what to put up. One tactic people use is to delete all blogs entries older than say a couple of months, the feeling being that if it is not CURRENTLY on WOL then it is ok to be submitted to a competition. Hope this helps? Win

Legally, it might well be publishing. But personally, I wouldn't consider anything that I might post here to be "published", because it hasn't gone through any editorial process. Magazines (internet or otherwise) that have some kind of editorial policy mean that you have a chance of being read by someone with a little knowledge of the poetry field, and getting chosen by an editor with a good reputation does mean that you get a better reputation yourself as a result.

Magazines or websites that don't have some kind of critical apparatus for choosing "the best" (I realise that's not an objective category) may be annoying when you find yourself regected, but at least they give you an inkling of what the editors don't want. They don't often have time to give feedback (though some do) though.

I wouldn't personally just post up poems online willy-nilly; I'm very careful where I send things.

Thanks everyone for all your help on this. I think, in the circs, I shall take down a poem I have posted up here as I've submitted it to a magazine. It'll come thudding back through the letter box in a few days' time, of course. Btw, we will be venturing north at the beginning of April to see our daughter in Middleton, so I'm looking to turn up at the Hebden Bridge WOL on the 7th, since it's more or less just down the road. Cheers, Greg

I read this thread with interest. I am sending stuff off this year, both for competitions and for publication in magazines (thanks for that link Greg!) and was confused about the previously published rule too. For two comps I've entered recently I purposely didn't post the poems in question anywhere...blog, here or on other forums I occasionally moonlight on. This was a bit of an issue for me because I rely on feedback from here to help me ascertain whether a poem is any good or not so had to wing it a bit with my limited self criticism skills. In a way I hope they don't come in anywhere so I can post them up on here, cos I'm inordinately proud of them!:)
Do we have a criticism thread solely for circs like that, because I'd hope that even very stringent rules would allow for poems having been given the once over on a criticism level...what do people think?
Also (sorry this was going to be brief but wasn't destined to be)what about previously performed work? Could a seriously picky editor/judge deem something 'broadcast' if it'd been read to an audience?
There, my job today (water muddying)is done!

Some good comments here, folks... I certainly don't put everything I ever write up here online partly because I don't want to blast people out too much with them, and also I like to hold some back for publication.

Magazines I've spoke to which have accept stuff don't seem to generally mind too much if its something like this here, but I would always double check.

This was an interesting thread. I'm adding to it now as I've had some queries on the subject and thought it was a good way for the folk who've asked me to find it.

I have been submitting stuff on a fairly regular basis for four or five years now and my work has been accepted by more than fifty outlets. It is, of course, essential to read the submission guidelines for the particular magazine in question. Most call for 'original and unpublished work' but a few are happy to take reprints while many make a point of saying that, in their terms of reference, publication on blogs and fora does use up first publishing rights.

On the other hand, some magaines exclude password protected sites where the work has been posted for the purposes of feedback and discussion. This being the case, if there are going to be changes to the way Write Out Loud works, it might be a good idea to be able to tag postings as being 'work in progress'. It would not guarantee that work would be acceptable to all editors but it would certainly help, I think.

The difficulty is, of course, that when you first complete a piece and think about posting here you may have no clear idea of where you will submit it in the future; and,indeed, once submitted, some magazines and zines can take months to respond. It can be quite hard to 'sit on' a poem that you want to send out into the world to be share with others. If you do want to be published, though - and I accept that for many this is not important - my advice would be to be cautious about what you post here. You can still 'share', of course, via a reading or performance. It is interesting, isn't it, that this does not 'count'?

Interesting points raised Abigail. Having just read what you say, and as, on WOL we have an audio facility when we post a poem, would it not count as being published if we just posted the audio without the written poem? Mind you, I don't think many people would bother with that - it's just something that occurred to me.

I know what you mean about finding it hard to "sit on" a poem once you've written it. I usually wait about ten minutes then put it on here!

I figure that on WOL more people will read my poems than would buy a book of poems that I might ever publish. And I don't enter competitions as I feel it's not worth paying £6 or whatever and then hope that the poem you've sent is going to be the best one you've written.

I'd rather be on here and also perform stuff live. That's where the buzz izz (for me).

Interesting discussion. Most publications specify if blogs count as a form of publishing. If in doubt, take it down.

Competitions, though, count blogs as a form of publishing so it's best to take the piece(s) down for the duration of the comp (just in case you win!)

The only time I got as far as querying what counts as published was a recent competition and the helpful editor said as far as he was concerned, self published booklets without an ISBN number did not count as published. Now I can see a logic to this, as regardless of whether anybody has read the work, if it doesn't have an ISBN number and hasn't therefore been stored in the British Library etc. then it is not preserved for posterity but is only 'ephemera'. This has made me think back over what of mine counts as published, and since student mags rarely had ISBN's in the past, and my own booklets didn't I have only three 'published' poems in this sense. Digital copies of poems may get more widely read, but unless they are anthologised in a published work, they will slip away into the ether. Do I care? I appreciate audience reaction to work much more than the idea some future scholar in the British Library will study my words.

Surely the phrase "public domain" has legal relevance here when considering the word "published". All reputable competitions should set out their terms of entry so that no doubt exists for entrants. However, I am of the opinion that a "work" that has been made available to the "public domain" has been "published". Payment of cash or kind has no particular relevance to the availability of a work in the said public domain. I withheld a poem from a competition because it was my view that it was in the public domain when uploaded on to WOL - and thus "published".

I can attest to the fact that a lot of editors and competition administrators do find Google is their friend: if they find the poem anywhere they will put it aside. Few are discriminating enough to differentiate between password protected and openly published. If it's here: it's gone. You will never know: few editors will bother to tell you.

PS, taking a poem down has no effect on Google which keeps the reference, I won't say forever, but certainly for your lifetime, so if you want to be published the best policy is to keep away from on line forae.

My own policy is only ever to put up published material.

but, why?

If it's published by a mag then the chances are the poem's OK.

I must be reading the wrong mags if that is the case!

I thought I'd revive this discussion topic, because we recently had a query from a poet who wasn't sure whether posting his poems on Write Out Loud meant that they would be considered by print magazines and competition organisers to have been previously published, and therefore ineligible. This was the gist of my reply:

"This is something that has exercised me personally in the past, as I have regularly blogged my poems on WOL over the years, and also sought publication in print magazines, and made competition submissions. These days, if people say a poem should not have been published online, I think you can take it that they include Write Out Loud.

As our most recent newsletter points out, it may well be that more people will see your poem on WOL than will be the case if it appears in a print magazine. But of course a magazine carries a certain kudos and prestige, because your poem will have been weighed and judged and selected to appear in it. And I also accept that having something physical to hold, or send to family and friends, is valuable.

My approach in the past has been to remove the poem from the blogs, maybe edit it some more, and maybe alter the title as well before submitting it. More recently I have been content to leave poems I value on the WOL blogs, because I'm looking for feedback, and not so desperate about building up a portfolio of print mags that I've appeared in. But that's just a personal thing. In the discussion that we had about this on WOL, a few years ago now, a poetry editor, Alan Gillott, of York's Stairwell Press, said:

'I can attest to the fact that a lot of editors and competition administrators do find Google is their friend: if they find the poem anywhere they will put it aside. Few are discriminating enough to differentiate between password protected and openly published. If it's here: it's gone. You will never know: few editors will bother to tell you. PS, taking a poem down has no effect on Google which keeps the reference, I won't say forever, but certainly for your lifetime, so if you want to be published the best policy is to keep away from online ... My own policy is only ever to put up published material.'

It's also worth saying that many poets blog on Write Out Loud because they don't care a fig about publication, and have much more fun sharing, receiving feedback, and being part of WOL's poetic community!

Interesting. I have had dialogues with publishers in the past about my blogs on WOL. I have pointed out that it is a peer-to-peer reviewing site, rather than a magazine which has published my work. I've found that this has worked most of the time and my poem has gone ahead to be published, but as already pointed out, some people do not accept this and will just bin your submission.

Submission guidelines on the whole tend to be fairly draconian anyway so this is simply another hoop to jump through.

topical, as i have received 2 rejects in 2 days because of poems being up here. ive decided to delete 2016s poems because of this. it seems to take a while for them to leave google but they do drop off eventually and most places (i would imagine) just use google to see if something has been online.

i love posting on here so im going to try the best of both worlds, posting them here for a week or so then deleting them. its a bit naughty but im a naughty man.

It might be a kindness to add noindex to the appropriate web site pages in the html head section;

<meta name = "robots" content = "noindex" />

should keep google, bing and their more ethical friends away from our poems. It won't help having been indexed poems but will help in the future.

quick update - the poems i deleted earlier have now gone from google (as far as i can tell - most arent searchable and the ones that are link to a 404 page).quicker than i expected.

It's a proper conundrum, this, and one which has clearly been exercising people over many years. Stu's approach is one solution. Another option is to change the permissions on any blog to only allow logged-in users to see it (thus preventing search engines from indexing it) making WOL's function more that of the peer-to-peer reviewing site Laura mentioned earlier in the thread.

If you choose to do that, here's how you go about it:

1) Go to your blog entry
2) At the bottom, find the word Permissions with a + next to it
3) Click on the +. This will show a form allowing you to update permissions

A little off-subject, I know, but Colin raised the subject of adding a 'like' button (or something similar) to blogs, so that people who hadn't the time or inclination to comment would still be able to register their approval of the poem.

This is something we're already looking at implementing, and hope to bring in sooner rather than later. Like everything to do with the WOL site, however, it's undertaken by volunteers giving up their free time in what are often very busy lives, so please be patient and cut us a little slack. :-)

I think it would be good to have a 'like' button, but the comments on poems are really good and useful, when people take the trouble to leave them.
I must confess that as part of my self-improvement confidence building efforts in the last year or so I went through and copied all the comments left against my poems and put them into my word doc containing all the poems (it is hugely incomplete of course, but I go there to find them when I lose them.)
The comments are morale boosting and I have this fantasy that one day when someone (apart from me) considers publishing my poems I will be able to show that they do receive some recognition when they get the chance. WOL commentators are very kind. I see them as endorsements.
Reading poems live, and putting them on blogs, may seem very ephemeral compared to getting published in a book, but I expect mine have reached more people live than would ever buy a book.
Once a poem has been on the internet or in a magazine etc. there is a real chance of it being captured by someone else and presented as their work, so I think competitions and magazines are very wary of getting into copyright rows. I think that is why they often insist that nobody else has seen it before you present it to them.

I love your idea of keeping a record of all the comments made on your poems, Freda. And it's good for us to remember that the comments we make can be a real fillip to the morale and confidence of our fellow poets....

The "Like" feature has been added to the site. Please see the announcement in the Site Announcements forum for more details.

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/newsgroupview.php?NewsGroupsID=26&NewsThreadsID=1936