Never ask a surgeon about turkey carving...

[etherial]

I was unclear in my previous post about websites. I'm not looking for a modern web 2.0 data scheme. I want a simple front page that says "Hi, we are legitimately offering you $5 for your short story and will actually pay you if we use it". What information can we provide, besides our writing guidelines, that will help assure you that your $5 short story is not going to be stolen by us?

I am currently suffering from writer's block, not an overwhelming desire to curl up in a ball twitching because I can't get the @!#$ code to work.

Comments

[stillking.livejournal.com]

The simple "mail yourself a sealed, certified, dated letter containing your own short story, with an unbroken signature across the back envelope flap" is a decent stopgap method, and will stand up in court if/when necessary. Authors and publishers have been doing this for, like, 75 years.

To jumpstart this process, you might offer to send them a postage-paid envelope suitable for such activity. This is what half.com (now eBay) does for its sellers.

-- Sven