This comes up a lot, and it's this notion of, what
constitutes being published.
And I think it's interesting when you said--
when you said, if it was published somewhere else,
you would take it, if they would take it down.
It's retroactive, it's tense, and it's really cool.
I mean, I get it.
I get the exclusivity.
Actually, I've never heard anybody phrase it that way,
where it's almost like post-published instead of
previously published.
[LAUGHTER]
And I think there's--
I think it's really fuzzy, that's
it's really hard to define, and that it's all--
I don't want to say negotiable, but that there's
wiggle room is great, because it has to be.
Because there's exceptions to almost everything
that has just been described.
Like I said, well, if it's on a personal website.
Well, I can tell you, vispo.com is
Jim Andrews is a personal website,
but if you get published there, that counts, so.
And there's a lot of small presses out here, in the world,
in this country, where the principle of that small press
has published their own title.
So I mean, that that's self-published, right?
You know.
And so even when it isn't self-published
is really hard to define.
The most interesting aspect of self-publishing, to me,
came from again from Nick, who I'll keep referring to all day.
But he made a distinction between self-publishing
something that no one else would publish,
and self-publishing something no one else could publish.
[LAUGHTER]
And I am really interested in the things that someone else
couldn't-- or couldn't do as well,
or couldn't meet my level of need for control, you know?
Because I think some writers are a real control freak.
But the last thing I want to say is about previously published,
as it pertains to poetry.
And I think the poetry community has
adopted that mindset, just sort of ported over
from big publishing and mainstream publishing,
where no one could risk the possibility of getting
sued by Houghton Mifflin.
Because even if you were right, you
would lose, because you couldn't afford to.
I mean, no one who is publishing poetry could go to court.
I can tell you that right now.
They could not go to court.
They are losing money every year,
they're doing it as a labor of love.
Maybe they're getting some grant money, maybe, maybe,
maybe they're breaking even.
But none of these people could go to court, let alone
even pretend to win in court.
So on some level, it makes sense that the issue
is, well, we don't want to take any risk on whether there's
rights.
But the reality is, the question that I
think we should be asking isn't, has it
been previously published?
We should ask, does the author own the rights for me
to print it again?
Because that's the only real concern.
I mean, if the author can say-- like,
you say you buy first round of North American rights.
So something that-- if I wrote something and you publish it,
you got first North American rights,
now I can publish it somewhere, again.
Because you only bought first American rights,
so those rights reverted back to me.
So it makes no sense, if your policy is the same as his,
that you wouldn't accept my work,
even though it was previously published there.
I wouldn't be able to, because it was previously published.
But it should be able to, because I own the rights,
because you let me have them.