h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Discus, I stumbled across your question to Jodan and thought I'd drop by and see if I can help.

H2G2 doesn't take the copyright for your piece away from you. What you give them is a modified version of *first publishing rights* the copyright remains with you. Most magazines will only publish work if it has not been published anywhere else before. The same rules don't usually apply for book publication but it might be a point in the minus column for some publishers.

Technically, as soon as you put a piece onto hootoo it has been published but internet publication is stil a whole big grey area so there are ways around that. You *can* put a piece up just to get feedback, with the intention of publishing it elsewhere in the future, without harming the saleability of the piece. You just have to remove it from the site before you send it off to a magazine/publisher/agent. You just wipe the text from the entry and then delete (or reuse) the page, then there won't be any record of the story on the site. Obviously this would mean that you couldn't allow the piece to go into the edited guide, the underguide or the post, since they all create a new, permanant, copy of the entry which takes it out of your control. Similarly, don't post work you want to publish to conversation threads or in your journal, again because you can't remove it.

I hope that was helpful.

N

Thanks Nadia, that's made me feel all festive all of a sudden

Hope you're well and having a Merry Xmas.

Yours,

Discus.