Quote Originally Posted by woodsman'sgame
If you give your work over to a real publisher, he retains all copyright to that work. You basically sell your story and lose the right to ever sell it again. One of the points in any publishing contract I have ever seen or signed is that you agree that the work will not be displayed anywhere else or sold to anyone else. If you publish a story on this forum and lose the right to remove it, you lose the opportunity to ever have it published. Let this serve as notice to anyone who is unfamiliar with publishing contracts who wishes to enter the contests.

you are quite right Woodsman---and in effect when you enter a story in the contest, we are publishing it. But unlike your getting paid for the story ---we do not ask for exclusive publishing rights--you are free to post the story anywhere else you like. In exchange for publishing your story so it is exposed to many people--all we ask is the right to maintain it. This helps the amature writter get his work exposed, and keeps interesting stories on the board for new readers.

That is why I say the contests are not for the professional writters who wish to sell their stories. If you plan to sell your story take heed of Woodman's warning---do not enter it in the story contests.

Now that this has been explained to death ---I hope we can get on with some contests.