As my friends and readers know (if there are any of you still checking this blog), I've been kicking it into high gear lately trying to publish some of the sonnets from the Project, and meeting with some success. However, lately as I look at guidelines for possible markets, again and again I'm seeing this:
As far as online publication goes, we do consider something published if, before or during our issue currency, substantially the same work appears (or has appeared) on a publicly accessible website — and that includes personal sites and blogs as well as ezines.
That's from the guidelines for the excellent sonnet-centric e-zine
14x14, which I had hoped would consider some of my stuff--but apparently because I blogged the project while it was going on, I'm shit-out-of-luck. And they're not the only ones.
I have to say, I don't really understand this reasoning. I mean, if I put it in a notebook, and left that notebook sitting out on my coffee table for friends and visitors to read, would they consider THAT published? I know the internet is different, but still, it's not like I'm running a magazine here. And further, if I may be so bold, it's not like most of these places are offering cash payment.
I just wonder if I can now list
The Sonnet Project as a publication credit when I write to other magazines--or if they would poo-poo because it's not a real publication (a point of view with which I would agree).
Anyway, it saddens me a little, b/c I think I've got at least a few good pieces here that I'd like to get considered by zines like
14x14 and others, and I feel I'm being punished for keeping a blog record of my poetry. What do you think? Anyone?
