posted
Alright, so I've decided to pull a Stephen King (cf The Regulators and Desperation) and do two seperate stories around roughly the same scenario (A kid who's stealing back moonshine from a shed discovers a strange machine inside and a shining man when he runs away) but vastly different storylines. With the exception of these two scenes, nothing about the stories is at all the same.
I'd even like to use the same title for both--"Moonshine."
So is there any problem selling both of these? Yeah, it's an ambitious question, considering the grand total of stories I've sold you can count on one finger, but I'm still curious, whether they sell or not.
Even if its not a copyright issue, would the editors feel cheated at discovering the other story published by the other magazine? Would the mere fact that the titles are the same create legal problems, since the contracts could give them claim on either story?
Thanks for your thoughts . . .
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Can't copyright a title. And as long as the stories are different, no editor will have a problem with two stories of the same title being shopped out for consideration.
However, you might consider writing a little note to the editor explaining that you are putting out two different stories with the same title. Editors do tend to talk together more often than one might think. And if two editors mention just the title in conversation, they might assume it was for the same story being simultaneously submitted.
And there is very little that a newbie author can do to tick off editors more than to make simultaneous submissions of the same story to different magazines. It's the type of thing that can land one permanently on the black list of the editors involved; regardless of whether the editor would have otherwise bought your story. Same thing if you have a story published, and the same story is still sitting on the desk of another editor. Editors often read each other's publications. If the tale of simultaneous submission gets around, you might even be blacklisted by editors who have never read your work.
Of course, when you've become a long established author who usually makes the top of the bestsellers lists, you might be forgiven. But I wouldn't count on it.
posted
BTW: The same timetravel story told from two totally different perspectives was sold to Analog and Asimov's, and published in the same month by both magazines. However, both editors knew beforehand that the tales were going to be submitted to them at the same time. And the editors got together and swapped the manuscripts: each finding that what the other received was more in keeping with the flavor of their own magazine than what they were originally given.
Consider sending both stories to the same editor. Then repeat if both are rejected. If an editor likes one, he might recommend the other to another editor, putting it on top of the other editor's 'to read' list rather than in the slush pile.
...but I think naming them the same would cause a lot of unnecessary confusion, unless you intend the stories to be compared to one another or something. You could always call it Moonshine I and Moonshine II or something, anyways.
I actually really like the idea of sending both to the same magazine at the same time. I know a few mags are cool with you sending a couple stories in the same envelope, as long as each has a separate SASE.
(By the way, have any of you seen that Realms of Fantasy's first reader has a web page?)
(And for anybody who participates in Critters, my novella, "Beautiful Hands," is up for crit this week. It was a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future contest, and a pretty good story, but I'd appreciate your advice to make it better.)
Thanks again for everybody's advice.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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