Alloy does a lot of packaging, and they're very bottom-line oriented. A lot of those series were developed in house and farmed out to contract writers.

John Scalzi weighs in.

“We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.”

i.e., that really cool creative idea you put in your story, or that awesome new character you made? If Alloy Entertainment likes it, they can take it and use it for their own purposes without paying you — which is to say they make money off your idea, lots of money, even, and all you get is the knowledge they liked your idea.

I pity the poor schmuck who's going to have to go through the slush pile.

Dana - it sounds like there is no slush pile. There's a box full of rules, including no shared worlds, no slash, no ... well pretty much no fanfic in the fanfic. Cleolinda's spot on in her commentary.

But someone will have to read submissions to make sure they conform to those rules, right? (I'm probably using "slush pile" wrong.)

I assume someone's going to vet them, yeah.

I submitted a paper for peer review to an editor for a journal. Basically they said they would finish peer review between June 7 and July 7 (and would try to get done earlier but were not hopeful.) To finish by July 7 they would have to have started already. I have not heard from them - no questions or anything. Though I tried be both rigorous and easy to understand - so maybe I suceeded and there are no questions. Anyway wanting to do responsible followup, but not be a nagging over-contacting author, should I follow up if I have not heard from them by July 7th? Would contacting them June 7th be over the line and put me in the "Nagging author" column?

If they gave you that window for when you might hear from, I would wait until July 7 has passed before asking for an update. You may well hear from them between now and then anyway.

Behold: genre writers catch and eat a live vanity press

(small plug - I've found AW to be a great resource, especially for genre novelists [COUGH JZ COUGH]. It's also a great place to delve a little deeper than Writer Beware. YMMV )

ETA - link fixed

I'm signed up to AW, but I haven't been there in quite awhile. I just didn't have time.

Incidentally, I have a new blog post about protecting your laptop, and one about awkward questions for aspiring writers.

If anyone would like to guest post there, contact me via profile addy. I'm trying to get some guest posters to add a little variety, especially while I'm trying to finish up some revisions.