Have you been published?

[GforGraham]

Just curious. Lots of advice being given, but are there many actual experienced published writers. You do not even have to be earning money for your writing or published many. All it takes is for a person independant of you liked what you wrote and circulated it for others to read. Circulated could be printed, electronic or verbal.
I am no writing guru but have read heavily (read 2 novels per week average for over 25 years, watched little or no TV for years). 'So what' you say, and I agree.
Not to boast, as I have very little to brag about, my first publication was when I was 14 in (just counting school years) todays year 9. My english teacher thought my essay in mid year exams was good enough that he printed it in the school magazine. I will say the kudos for that was so overwhelming the crickets could be heard from 500 metres away.

So out of curiosity when were you first published?

 

[Setanta84]

I've been published as a poet and an essayist outside of my writing for work. I started submitting about three years ago and just completed a poetry fellowship.

 

[SamScribble]

In answer to your first question: Yes, thank you.

In answer to your last question: 1965. Bloody hell! Do you realise that's now 50 years ago? No wonder I'm starting to feel tired.

 

[sr71plt]

All it takes is for a person independant of you liked what you wrote and circulated it for others to read.

That's what it takes to have a publisher, not to be published. Self-publishers don't have to have anyone select their work to be published but themselves.

 

[GforGraham]

That's what it takes to have a publisher, not to be published. Self-publishers don't have to have anyone select their work to be published but themselves.

That is why I did not add self published. You do not need any talent to publish your own work. Like this site, you get published regardless of how badly you can string some words together. In my book you must be published by another person, and this does not include your mum.

 

[Hypoxia]

First publications? That counter-cultural crap I wrote for the underground press in L.A and S.F. a half-century ago. Then songs, published and recorded by others. Then photographs circulated worldwide. (I had a captive audience.) Then working as a tech writer and editor. Then propaganda circulated on huge FidoNet echo lists and Usenet newsgroups, but such did not pay. Neither does my current line of smut. But I was Famous Long Ago, sure.

 

[sr71plt]

1978.

 

[GforGraham]

Counting on fingers again

What do you expect, no smart phones in those days. It was 1970 and I was just 13. Glad I am not as old some people here. Gosh, what was it like before television Sr71plt and Hypoxia (snigger, snigger)

 

[sr71plt]

Quiet. I can't think of anything more mind numbing than a smart phone.

 

[_Lynn_]

I guess that would be two or three years after I began writing (which was in 2007).

 

[JKendallDane]

My very first actually published stuff was back in 1978 in trade magazines, but that was all free gratis for about eight years. Since then I've had articles and stories in a number of national and international magazines.

The first time I was paid for something was by Reader's Digest in 1989, then again by American Heritage in 1999. I never really looked at writing as an income potential and didn't really pursue it. It was just something I enjoyed doing.

 

[TxRad]

2008 was the first paying book.

Before that was a couple of short stories and a poem in the Coming Together series of Books that Lit authors with a massive amount of help from Impressive (Alessia Brio) put out to support different charities. The series is still going on.

 

[oggbashan]

I too was published in several school magazines both for fiction and non-fiction.

In my real identity I had been published (and acknowledged) in trade media, textbooks, manuals and reports for the House of Commons. All of it was non-fiction and is now years out of date yet at one time the single-spaced list of publication bare titles was 3 A4 pages long in 12 point Times.

But that professional writing was non-fiction. About 20 years ago I joined an evening class for 'Creative Writing'. I knew I could write competent non-fiction. I wanted to learn to write fiction.

The class tutor knew I had written some non-fiction and published it. At the first session she asked all of us if we had ever been published. A couple had been, poetry in pensioners' magazines. She pointedly said to me - "I know you have been published. Where?"

I tried to avoid the question which I saw as irrelevant because it had been all NON-fiction. But she insisted. "What sort of media? Newspapers? Magaizines? Books?"

I answered "Yes". I didn't include technical video for which I had been the script writer and producer.

She insisted again. "National newspapers? National Magazines."

I was getting annoyed. This was absurd.

"Yes," I replied. "Several UK newspapers, several UK magazines, and as far as I know some of my writing has been translated and published in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin. It might have been translated into other languages as well. Why should I care? It was giving professional information for free dissemination."

That shut her up, but for the whole of the 10 evenings of the course she kept saying "Unless [oggbashan] knows better."

Why should I know better? I and the others wanted to write FICTION. We already knew how to write.

A year later I joined a different class of Creative Writing, having checked that the tutor was not the same one. That was more successful because the class was about devising plots, making characters realistic etc.

That tutor is still a friend but hasn't forgiven me for something that happened during the course. She mentioned a local amateur writing contest and suggested that we all entered it. So did she.

Her story was unplaced. Mine came third!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

First published work...2006 with eXcessica Publishing.

Since then I have added approx. 50+ titles.

 

[lovecraft68]

What do you expect, no smart phones in those days. It was 1970 and I was just 13. Glad I am not as old some people here. Gosh, what was it like before television Sr71plt and Hypoxia (snigger, snigger)

What was it like?

We could memorize phone numbers, we could find places without a GPS, we weren't so terribly afraid of being alone that we could go stretches of hours without talking to anyone on a phone.

Most importantly we were not obsessed with posting to facebook and twitter

Back in the day our life did not revolve around constantly checking to see how many people liked or responded to every random thought we felt the need to post, we were not addicted to the banality of other people's random thoughts and mindless drivel

In other words, we had real friends, left the house to do real things and used our brains. There were no apps back then, we actually figured things out.

 

[oggbashan]

What do you expect, no smart phones in those days. It was 1970 and I was just 13. Glad I am not as old some people here. Gosh, what was it like before television Sr71plt and Hypoxia (snigger, snigger)

My eldest aunt had a television in 1936. She had to buy a new one in 1946 because her previous one wouldn't work for the new transmissions.

Each time she paid the equivalent of a half to two-thirds the price of a mid-range family car.

 

[lovecraft68]

I published several horror stories in the eighties for a local small press publishing house . Mostly Cthulhu Mythos stuff(no surprise)

I've had a couple of articles published in comic fanzines and a market reports in price guides.

IN the nineties I co scripted a comic book under a small independent here today gone tomorrow-comic company, that lasted about...3 issues, but the credit was under the other person's name, it was mostly his project I just created and handled one of the characters.

For erotica I've self published with the exception of letting a publisher use a few of my already self published works in some of their anthologies.

 

[lovecraft68]

That is why I did not add self published. You do not need any talent to publish your own work. Like this site, you get published regardless of how badly you can string some words together. In my book you must be published by another person, and this does not include your mum.

As opposed to how well written 50 shades is and is main stream published?

My mom didn't pay me the thousands I made self publishing last year, thank you.

Good thing I'm not in your book.

 

[oggbashan]

That is why I did not add self published. You do not need any talent to publish your own work. Like this site, you get published regardless of how badly you can string some words together. In my book you must be published by another person, and this does not include your mum.

In that case I have been published in most countries of the world and in many languages. I'm worldwide!

My stories have been stolen wholesale from Literotica and reposted everywhere including on Japanese Anal Fisting teenagers' sites.

 

[ishtat]

I concluded long ago that I had no talent for writing fiction, but I have had non-fiction published. The first was a mathematics text book almost 30 years ago developed from my post grad work. It sells slowly, very slowly to a particular market, but sufficiently well that a new edition will be published in 2016.

I also won a 25 Pounds prize for a poem published in "The Farmers Weekly" -

 

[NaokoSmith]

Ishtat, I am unable to resist boasting in here, that among my many published articles, I have one I wrote for Rugby World.

 

[Penuche]

Short non fiction pieces published in a few places, but unpaid. It helps if you're in the right place at the right time.

 

[oggbashan]

Ishtat, I am unable to resist boasting in here, that among my many published articles, I have one I wrote for Rugby World.

Well done!

I was published a few years ago as three articles in a quarterly magazine for collectors of a particular antique car.

I wrote one article, but it was so long they spread it over nine months and three issues. I actually had fan mail, including 'Letters to the Editor'.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Yes, I've been published. Back when Penthouse Forum was a big deal for short, erotic stories. There used to be quite a few half-sized magazines that mostly published 1st person "letters." Bought my first word processer with my earnings. Later, my first computer.

The writers' guidelines typically called for stories no longer than 3000 words, written in the first person, letter-style. Paid $50-300 per story, which most of mine earning $100 each for the publisher who bought most of my stuff. Funny to imagine how getting paid even $50 for a 3000 word letter-style erotic story would be a big deal today.

Only downside back then? You usually didn't get paid until publication. This would have been in the late 80's & early 90's.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Never got published at my school magazine, but my articles did get published on two newspapers regularly for about 2 years before college and studies demanded a greater attention. The earning wasn't much, but it meant the world to me.

I was first published in 2011 in print at a national newspaper. It was a tongue-in-cheek article about consumerism and the way people were sucked in by the innumerable choices. One other columnist liked it and encouraged me to write more. I applied to a lot of magazines as well, buy got rejected by 95% of them until one fitness mag took pity and posted my article about alcoholism in a corner on their website.

That's just about the size of my writing career till now. I never meant to take it seriously, but was glad that my hobby was worth something.