Submission concerns.

[psiberzerker]

All right, I want to post one of the Novels I'm writing, maybe two of them, but some of my concerns hold me back. I read all the Faqs, but they only answered some of my questions. Here goes.
First, it says somewhere that Literotica reserves the right to publish the submissions, though it deeds the copywrite (c) to the author(s). My question is this, does publishing here preclude us publishing elsewhere? I concider myself an amatuer, but hope to one day make money at this.
Seccondly, I have an unclear concept of what precicely is banned. A lot of my stories are envelope pushers, so at best, they skate the line. What happens if I slip over, do they just refuse to publish, or am I in for reprecussions?Will the editor(s) e-mail me with their concerns, or will it just be dismissed out of hand?
To be specific, the stories I'd like to post involve two sexual serial killers. The first, a villian, rapes, and tortures Dommes to death. All the action is presented with a degree of seperation, but the results can be graphically described. Needless to say, this is not encouraged, or glorified, but vilified.
The other is a protagonist, or anti-heroine who kills rapists using herself as bait. This can get rather vicious, as she is the narrator, and her issues have issues. I didn't want to do it that way, but it's really the only way I could find to get the reader to understand her.
I appreciate any response in advance, and look forward to the clarification. If anything, I am anxious to get started.

 

[Weird Harold]

First, it says somewhere that Literotica reserves the right to publish the submissions, though it deeds the copywrite (c) to the author(s). My question is this, does publishing here preclude us publishing elsewhere? I concider myself an amatuer, but hope to one day make money at this.

No, submitting here does NOT prevent you from publishing the story elsewhere. Some publishers may not accept works that have been previously published or published onthe internet, but that is a business decisiononthier part, and NOT a copyright consideration per se.

Seccondly, I have an unclear concept of what precicely is banned. A lot of my stories are envelope pushers, so at best, they skate the line. What happens if I slip over, do they just refuse to publish, or am I in for reprecussions?

Rejections her are usually in the form of a link on your submissions page to form that tells the reason for rejection -- no further repurcussions or comments

To be specific, the stories I'd like to post involve two sexual serial killers.

Literotica doesn't publish "Snuff" stories, although they do publish stories involving death and murder.

The dividing line is the sexual context and/or gratification involved.

If your killers "get off" on the killings, then they're likely banned.

 

[Un-registered]

Re: Re: Submission concerns.

Literotica doesn't publish "Snuff" stories, although they do publish stories involving death and murder.

The dividing line is the sexual context and/or gratification involved.

If your killers "get off" on the killings, then they're likely banned.

There is a middle way, which is the Extreme section. The drawback with that is it updates only every couple of months, so it could be a long time before you see them.

 

[Chicklet]

Re: Re: Re: Submission concerns.

There is a middle way, which is the Extreme section. The drawback with that is it updates only every couple of months, so it could be a long time before you see them.

you're being generous. i've been waiting for a story to go up since april 2002.

Chicklet

 

[openthighs_sarah]

Re: Re: Submission concerns.

No, submitting here does NOT prevent you from publishing the story elsewhere. Some publishers may not accept works that have been previously published or published onthe internet, but that is a business decisiononthier part, and NOT a copyright consideration per se.

It does (possibly) affect what rights you can sell and maybe even how much you'll get for those rights. Even though it's still up to the other market to make the decision about whether to publish, some markets might pay less if they're not granted first serial rights (for a short). I'm not really sure how it's legally defined in this case, though -- if publishing on the Lit site is actually "publishing", and what rights, if any, have been granted to Lit (and thus can no longer be granted to another market).

In any case, it's wise to let the other market know that you've posted the story, in one form or another, on this site -- it could even work to your advantage if it generated a lot of feedback, votes, etc. Maybe not, though -- since it's so anonymous and the copyright is based on your handle rather than your name, it could work against you. How's that for an unhelpful answer?

 

[tenyari]

To be specific, the stories I'd like to post involve two sexual serial killers.

If you're concerned about it getting accepted, post it to news://alt.sex.stories.moderated

You can find their posting guidelines here:
http://assm.asstr.org/assm/faq.html

and the main archive begins here:
http://www.asstr.org/main.html

They're usenet, and so have no censorship. The moderated is only there to filter out spam and non-erotica. You can use that to guage reactions to the work.

I get from 300 to 3000 reads on my stories every week there.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Literotica is publishing. When you post a story here, it's been published. There are a few mags here and there that won't think of Lit as "published", but when you put up a work here, or even here in the forums themselves, they consider it published.

You are granting Literotica the non-exclusive right to post your work under your name and your copyright for as long as you see fit. Nothing else.

What's happening, however, is a little more subtle and most authors around here don't understand it. You, personally, are exercising your first serial rights when you put a story up at Lit. You're not selling those rights, you're using them. Therefore, you can't sell those rights to someone else. You've only got them until you use them.

An example:

You write a story called "Sex in the Sack" and post it here at Literotica. You get great feedback and you decide to edit it a little and sumbit it to Penthouse to publish in one of their Forums magazines. You are legally obligated to tell them that you've already published this story at Literotica. Penthouse will then refuse to purchase the rights to your story and they will not publish you. They purchase all rights to the story.

Interestingly enough, if you sell "Sex in the Sack" to Penthouse, you no longer have any rights to that story. You cannot sell it elsewhere, you cannot post it on the 'Net, you no longer own it. They buy all rights. In short, the story is no longer yours.

If you post "Sex in the Sack" here, and then decide to sell it to Wicked Fetishes, you'll be okay. You are legally obligated to tell tham that you've already published this story at Literotica, but if the manuscript is good enough, they will purchase second serial rights and publish your story. You can do anything you want with the story after that, but you are legally obligated to tell anyone else you try to sell it to the venues that it has been published.

A word of caution: Most publications consider any form of Internet posting where the general public can find your work to be publication. If you post it here, or submit it as a story, or put it up on a geocities site, you are exercising first serial rights and you may no longer sell those.

Is that clear as river-bottom mud or what?

 

[psiberzerker]

I think I've sussed most of it, but there's still a couple things I'd like cleared up. For one, both of the killers where pre-sexualized as children. There's not enough graphicly described for the reader to make out particulars, but it's mentioned. Would that limit me writing here, or bannish the stories to the extreme dungeoun?
Seccondly, Amanda Hunt poses as a victim to kill rapeists. The "Victim" is the killer, (Depending on how you lok at it, I'm noty real clear on the morality of it) so it might be concidered "Snuff." I don't call it such, but there's a lot of room for interpretation.
Finally, can I change stories after submission? I'm in the process of writing these books, (along with the other two in the series, which aren't erotic) so nothing's set in stone.
Again, I appreciate the input.

 

[openthighs_sarah]

I think I've sussed most of it, but there's still a couple things I'd like cleared up. For one, both of the killers where pre-sexualized as children. There's not enough graphicly described for the reader to make out particulars, but it's mentioned. Would that limit me writing here, or bannish the stories to the extreme dungeoun?
Seccondly, Amanda Hunt poses as a victim to kill rapeists. The "Victim" is the killer, (Depending on how you lok at it, I'm noty real clear on the morality of it) so it might be concidered "Snuff." I don't call it such, but there's a lot of room for interpretation.
Finally, can I change stories after submission? I'm in the process of writing these books, (along with the other two in the series, which aren't erotic) so nothing's set in stone.
Again, I appreciate the input.

I don't think you have to worry about the under-age aspect, unless you explicitly describe the events -- just saying they were abused as children shouldn't, by itself, cause a problem. And if you make it clear that it's a horrific flashback, in any case -- as opposed to something that's meant to be titillating -- you're probably safe. A lot of mainstream fiction contains things like what you describe.

I always thought "snuff" related exclusively to films, because the idea is that an actress is being killed -- literally killed -- for the sexual gratification of the audience. Otherwise it's not snuff -- questionable, maybe, but not snuff.

You can change a story after it's submitted -- there are many posts on this subject. Re-submit the story with the same title, and append the word "EDITED"; it'll go through the same submission process as every other story, but when it's accepted (if it is) it will replace the original.

If you're really comfortable with the ethics in the story -- that any killing is ethically motivated, I mean, however debatable it might be -- you shouldn't have any problems. But I'm not Laurel. She seems pretty level-headed, though, and she won't reject a story out of hand without a good reason.

Good luck with it.

 

[jfinn]

I think I've sussed most of it, but there's still a couple things I'd like cleared up. For one, both of the killers where pre-sexualized as children. There's not enough graphicly described for the reader to make out particulars, but it's mentioned. Would that limit me writing here, or bannish the stories to the extreme dungeoun?
Seccondly, Amanda Hunt poses as a victim to kill rapeists. The "Victim" is the killer, (Depending on how you lok at it, I'm noty real clear on the morality of it) so it might be concidered "Snuff." I don't call it such, but there's a lot of room for interpretation.
Finally, can I change stories after submission? I'm in the process of writing these books, (along with the other two in the series, which aren't erotic) so nothing's set in stone.
Again, I appreciate the input.

I agree with Sarah about the children thing, as long as the sex is mentioned and not told it shouldn't be a problem here. If you still have worries about it when you post it then make a comment to Laurel pointing out the area so she can make a decision.

Snuff is an actual code used on a lot of sites. In fact most of them insist on it. For info on that, I recommend going to ASSTR and reading their coding faq. I wonder though if what you're describing is really snuff? My understanding of the term is that it's snuff when the murderer (and reader) is supposed to get a sexual thrill from the killing, otherwise it's a plain old crime story.

Whatever it is though, if it were me I'd put a disclaimer at the beginning of the story to let people know what it is they're getting into. At least that way if they do get upset, they can't say they weren't warned.

Jayne

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

All right, I want to post one of the Novels I'm writing, maybe two of them, but some of my concerns hold me back. I read all the Faqs, but they only answered some of my questions. Here goes.
First, it says somewhere that Literotica reserves the right to publish the submissions, though it deeds the copywrite (c) to the author(s). My question is this, does publishing here preclude us publishing elsewhere? I concider myself an amatuer, but hope to one day make money at this.



I appreciate any response in advance, and look forward to the clarification. If anything, I am anxious to get started.

:
I can only respond to the first point.
If you submit to Lit, you still own the copyright.
*LEGALLY*
You can sell the story and pull it from Lit.
As a *PRACTICAL* mater, though, very few publishers will
be interested in a story which was once
available free somewhere else.
Of course, owning the copyright means that you own the
right to derivative works. So, if you write something
involving the same characters, there is no question of
your right to do so.

 

[psiberzerker]

Alright, I've come to a decision, and I think I've come up with a way to work it. First, there's a lot of erotic scenes I can do here that I can't pull off in the actual book without alienating the reader. I should be able to post those here, and just leave them out, or tone them down a bit to end run around the "Publishing" issue.
Right now, I' have a couple ways I might go when I finally finish this bastard. I have a freind who runs a book bindery. If it's affordable, I'll just have them print it, and sell them myself. Barring that, I might have to sacrifice a bit to make it past publishing editors that will want to vivisect my story. Neither should be threatened by what I've got planned.
Thanks for all your help.

 

[MathGirl]

As what they call a "Guest Author," I gave a site permission to use three pieces of mine that had already appeared here. When they appeared, it was noted at the end of each that I retained all rights.

Hope that helps.

MG