Would it be plagaurism (hate trying to figure out how to spell that word) to cut and paste your revise into my query? ; )
Evil Editor understands the problem with looking up a word in the dictionary: if you don't know how to spell it, how can you look it up? Plus, the dictionary has so many pages, with such tiny print. One possible solution: Dictionary.com. Evil Editor went there and typed in "plagaurism." They immediately said it wasn't in their files, and asked me if I meant "plagiarism." Big deal, I thought. So I tested them again, spelling it "playjurizm." Again they psychically determined what I was after. I tried "clayjarizm." They got it again. Oh yeah? I thought. Try this. And I hit them with "pladancer." They came back with "lapdancer." So they aren't infallible. In any case, Evil Editor is less bothered by your spelling than by your insistence on adding a winking smiley face to your correspondence. Were this an actual query letter, that would have been the kiss of death right there.
As for your question, most of what Evil Editor presents as his "revised versions" is plagiarized from his minions' query letters, so he can hardly complain when they use it for their own purposes. Let's hope the editor to whom you send your query doesn't Google your title, just to be sure it hasn't already been published by Publish America, only to be directed to Evil Editor's site.
21 comments:
I'm just getting the hang of subscribing to RSS feeds. Can you share the path to your RSS file?
Thanks!
Word verification: wltol
Evil Editor has no idea how RSS feeds work, nor even what RSS stands for. But one of his minions is sure to chime in shortly.
All right -- free rein to plagiarize! Evil Editor is good to his minions.
Sorry I can't help on the RSS thing. I just learned how to make italics in comments...
IANAL, but I think the original author of the query would be entirely safe on this. EE's revision is a derivative work of the original, and I assume that the author would again create a derivative of EE's version. In any case, since no one is selling the query letter and there would be essentially no damages resulting from your using a derivative of your own work, the question really is moot. It's not much different from having your critique group suggest rewrites to a short story and then passing the short story off as your own.
Now, if you published a book of query letters and copied EE's work and tried to pass it off as your own, that would be plagiarism, with potential damages.
Buzz, buzz.
verification word: laywu
dictionary.com suggestion: Lawe
S.W.-
So how DO you make italics in comments? God, am I a newbie, or what? I only just this month learned how to do attachments to my emails!
Italics:
Put the little "less than" symbol (above the comma), then the letter i, then the "greater than" symbol (above the period) in front of what you want italicized. Do the same at the back, but add a slash in front of the i.
>since no one is selling
You don't have to make money for it to be plagiarism.
If an agent googles my title and finds the polar bear discussions on this blog, will I be blacklisted or much sought after?
Heather and the polar bear tattoo
Yeah, what EE said, Kis. Like this, only without the spaces:
< i > w o r d < / i >
Without the spaces, you would get this:
word
Now if only I could figure out hyperlinks... :-)
I googled my title and only found the usual references to fans, servers and vampire movies. If I added "evil" to the search, then EE came up. I shall reflect on the likelihood of an agent doing that search.
On RSS -- it appears it is something the blog owner needs to turn on (search the blogger help for rss).
What it is -- a way for a tool to "subscribe" to a site, such that when new content is posted, the subcriber sees it. At least, that's what I gather, I haven't yet gotten much milage from any feeds.
Aha! I feel so empowered! Bwahahaha!
And I dunno, Buffy, the more famous EE gets, the more likely an agent will do that search. In fact, if I were to sub my query, I think I'd change the name, just to be safe.
Hey, thanks for clearing up that spelling for me!
And yeah, like I would really do the winky-smiley thing in a professional query!
Also, FYI, to do bolds, you can also do:
< b > word you want bold < / b >
Still adore you EE!
There's always the possibility the editor you're querying reads this blog, too.
I am agog.And magog too...
Thank you. Thank you.
It worked!
Now, I too, can do italics!
Evil Editor's RSS feed is at http://evileditor.blogspot.com/rss.xml and there is also an atom feed at http://evileditor.blogspot.com/atom.xml
RSS tools like the Sage extension to Firefox will automagically identify RSS/atom feeds, so you don't need to find them manually.
As for hyperlinks - easy-peasy. If you want to link, say, to the blog Wenlock at http://wenlock.blogspot.com/ from the word "wenlock" you type the following, (but without the spaces next to the "<" and ">"): < a href="http://wenlock.blogspot.com/" > wenlock < /a >
This will give you something that looks like this:
wenlock
Or (for hyperlink): Click on the hyperlink icon in blogger, type the url in the bottom section of the form that appears. This puts the url in your post. Now go to the HTML and replace the second incidence of the url (the one not in quotes) with what you want the hyperlink to say.
Ack, you guys lost me at http.
I still think I'd worry more if my book HAD been published by PublishAmerica.
Okay! Perhaps I now understand how to use italicx and bold. What is the "a" HTML tag?
And could somebody please explain RSS in basic English (for the totally tech-stupid among us)?
And thanks everybody-for asking such questions and providing answers!
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