Writers: a mag says "no reprints"--discuss!

From the subject line you’re probably thinking, “What is there to discuss? If they say no reprints, don’t send them reprints, dumbass.” But my question is: what, exactly, counts as a reprint? Obviously, if something has been published in a pro, semi-pro, or even small press magazine that pays only in copies, that’s considered publication. But outside of those categories things get a little fuzzy.

Example #1: What if you’ve posted a poem or short-story on your own web page? Is this considered “publication”? Sure, there’s a potential readership of millions, but there may be only an actual readership of a couple hundred (or, um, in my case even less).

Example #2: Do high school and college literary magazines count as real “publication”? I have one short story that was published about 10 years ago in a small junior college lit mag, and I’ve since substantially rewritten it (the story was good, but a lot of the writing was atrocious; you learn a lot in ten years). Would this story be considered out-of-bounds by most magazines, even though it’s been ten years, the story is much different, and only a couple of hundred junior college students ever saw the original mag?

Example #3: What about self-“published” chapbooks that never got any actual distribution? Around the same time as the example above, I got together with a group of friends and formed a small writer’s club. We decided to use what meager club funds we had to run off a xeroxed 'zine featuring our poetry, stories, and art. We could only print 150 of them, and distributed them for free on campus to the few people who gave a rat’s ass (mostly our friends). It was a labor of love, done just for fun, and probably less than 10 of those magazines still exist today. Anyway, I’ve recently rewritten one of those stories as well; again, it’s the same storyline but substantially revised and much improved.

So I’m looking for opinions from fellow would-be writers: would YOU consider submitting any or all of the above works? If so, would you tell the editors about the previous “publications”? Why or why not? Where do you draw the line between “publication” and “something several people have read in something that looked like a magazine”?

I’d consider sending them, but I wouldn’t consider passing them off as first-publishing works.

No reprints tends to mean that the work hasn’t been sold before. Publishing it on a webpage is usually considered publication. If a story has been extensively reworked, then in general it’s OK to submit it.

I’d definitely go ahead with submitting examples #2 and #3. I’d be a bit more cautious about submitting example #1 though.

Send it to the magazine and tell them exactly what form it has appeared in before. Let them make the decision.

If you’ve published online, even if your stats show that 3 people actually read it, Google or other search engines may well still have it indexed, and if the publishers decide to do a quick plagiarism-check Google search, you’ll be in trouble, since you may have a job showing you wrote the online version, amongst other problems.

If you’ve just given copies to your friends, you should be safe (unless you have a lot of friends). Otherwise tell the publisher.

Hmmm . . . hadn’t thought about that possibility. It would be an obvious thing for an editor to do, though. I wonder if it’s common practice?