Last year I had a story published in a surfing magazine. I had no idea it had been published. A friend of mine let me know. Don’t get me wrong, I sent the story to the Mag in the hope it would be published but there’s where it all gets a bit suss. Let’s start at the beginning.
I was browsing the Mag’s website when I came upon a writing competition. The winner would win a prize and also be published so it said. It also said I had to sign off that it could be published. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do it because I had missed the entry deadline to the competition. I sent the story anyway, with the subject bar of the email reading “missed the writing comp but here you are anyway...”
It was a couple of months later that my friend posted on his Facebook page that I had a story in the mag. I was initially ecstatic. My first published piece, but then confused when he told me it was in the writers comp. Hadn’t I missed the deadline? Had I won? I wrote to the publishers and asked what was going on. I also mentioned I hadn’t signed off on any publication for either the writing or the two photos’ they used. (Oh yeah forgot about them!) It didn’t take long to get a reply.
Yes the Comp had ended but due to the volume and quality of the entries they had decided to extend the competition and publish an entry each month with the readers deciding the winner in the Dec issue. I will add that the Ed also said if I wanted to remove my piece from the Comp he would do this and be happy to pay me. This was the first time I’ve had anything published and I have a lot more stories to tell, so to avoid the risk of upsetting a potential outlet, I said that it should stay in the Comp.
With December approaching I eagerly kept an eye on the Mag’s website and Facebook page and on Dec 20th Lo and behold… still no winner. But they had posted on their website and linked from Facebook, all the entries and deemed that whoever got the most ‘likes’ would win a snowboard jacket and be asked to do some work for the Mag next season. Rallying my troops and hitting the social networks, in no time I had racked up a decent tally, substantially more than the other entries. In fact I was even endorsed by a surf writing luminary which surely garnered me more ‘likes’ not to mention increasing traffic to their website.
So, two days short of a year since that story landed in their inbox what has happened? Nothing... I have nudged via their website and Twitter on a few occasions. The first ignored completely the next couple replied to with “he’s not here” or “Monday maybe” (can’t remember which Monday).
Quite frankly this is bullshit. They printed seven stories last year. That’s seven pages of people’s hard work for free. They moved the goal posts, they didn’t inform the entrants and they published without consent (in my case “because you mentioned the comp we thought it was okay” 26 days after it had closed!), and guess what they still haven’t announced a friggin winner 4 months after the Ed said they would.
Before all this happened a different magazine showed interest in the same story. Being new to this I asked a very well-known writer/journalist for advice.
“I'd just ask them to be specific about what they are proposing for your story, when they'd use it and what they'd pay. Be polite but if you let them they may string you along and put off running the piece for ages and want to pay you a pittance. 40-50c/word would be reasonable. Don't just let them dazzle you with the promise of seeing your name in print.”
Only in this case I didn’t even get a chance to ask those questions. And yes I was dazzled and yes I wish I’d taken the money. Hell who knows maybe I’ll win a snowboard jacket yet? Maybe I’ll get a paying assignment from the mag? I’ll let you know.
