Frequently Asked Questions: For Writers

I. SUBMISSIONS

Are submissions free?

Yes.

How do I submit?

First, you must register an account. Your account will provide you with an author profile that visitors can read every time they click on your name wherever it appears on the web site. All registrations and submissions are free. Once registered, you may submit by clicking on the Submissions tab in the toolbar. Simply choose the applicable category (currently novel or short story), fill in the Title field, and upload your work as a Microsoft Word (.doc) document from your computer by clicking on the Browse button. And remember to always complete your submission by clicking on the Submit button when you’re done.

What categories are currently available for submissions?

In the opening phase of our launch, we started with the short story category. We have recently rolled out our novel category. In the near future, we will roll out other artistic categories: poetry, screenplays, teleplays, theatre scripts, comic strips, and more.

Will I still own all rights to any work that I submit?

Always. Neither PatronQuo.com nor any participating patrons have any rights at all in the work that you submit on our web site.

Can I edit or polish my work after I’ve submitted it?

You can edit your submitted material as much as you wish. To do so, simply click on the Submissions tab in the toolbar after you have logged in, and you will see a list of your submitted work. Click on the row that lists the title you want to edit, and simply click the column entitled Edit. You may then upload the Word file document of your edited version.

Can I remove my work once I have submitted it?

You can always request by email (admin at PatronQuo dot com) that your work be removed from the web site. Due to the patron functions we have set up for all submitted works, along with various administrative reasons, we ask that you extend us 32 days to act upon your request for removal of any of your works on the web site.

Can I submit my work even if it is currently displayed elsewhere online?

Yes. You may also display it anywhere else online after submitting it.

II. BEING PATRONIZED

What does it mean to be “patronized”?

It means that a reader/fan has deemed your submitted work to be worthy of extending a payment to you. It does not mean that they have purchased any rights in your work. It just means that they will be showcased and ranked as patrons on the very pages where your stories or novel excerpts are showcased on the site. It’s their way of showing appreciation for your work, while signaling to other readers that they are patrons of that work. Some patrons might be motivated to “chip in” and financially support you. Others might be motivated to advertise themselves through your submission pages, trusting that the quality of your work will attract a great many readers to learn more about those who are patronizing your work.

If my submissions are patronized, how much of the patron payments will I actually receive?

You will receive the overwhelming bulk of each patron payment made toward your stories or novel excerpts. Our commission is currently just 15% of those payments (we need to stay viable for our efforts, after all). After we deduct our commission and any applicable PayPal fees and/or taxes that may apply to that patron’s payment, you should receive over 70% of each patron payment. And, of course, you never pay anything in order to receive patron payments.

When will I receive my patron earnings?

All amounts owing to you for any given month will be paid to you within 60 days after the close of the month during which (a) patron payments were made in relation to your uploaded work(s), or (b) your account has recorded total patron earnings for you in the amount of $50, whichever is the later. However, where it is administratively practical, we may choose to alter this policy and pay you within 60 days even if your account has fallen significantly short of earning the cumulative amount of $50 through patronage. The increment threshold is there to assist us in keeping track as to when we need to start paying out to our participating writers.

Does a patron have any rights to a story or novel they have patronized?

No. At all times, you retain all intellectual rights in the stories and novel texts that you post on the web site

I don’t yet have a PayPal account in order to receive patron payments. Can I still submit my work on the site?

Yes. However, at some point, once you have earned patron payments, you would need to set up a PayPal account, and provide your PayPal email address to us, so that we may properly transfer the payments to you via PayPal, which is among the Web’s most secure and reliable online payment companies. For practical purposes, this will not be a concern for you until you have actually earned patron payments on your account.

III. RANKINGS

How are rankings determined for submissions with no patron earnings?

In such cases, the higher ranking would go to the earlier of the submissions.

How are rankings determined for submissions with equal patron earnings?

In such cases, the higher ranking would go to the earlier of the submissions.

How do All-Time Rankings differ from This Month’s Rankings?

All-Time Rankings record the cumulative amounts you have received, for a submission or as an artist, from the time your story was posted or - in the case of artist rankings - from the time you registered your profile. This Month’sRankings record the cumulative amounts you received, for a submission or as an artist, since the beginning of the current month.

IV. BROWSING SUBMISSIONS AND PROFILES

If I am not among the top rankings, how will visitors find me?

All submitted works revolve in a randomized assortment on the home page - currently, in an assortment of four stories/novel excerpts per home page view. Theoretically, what this means is that a group of 1,000 visitors to our home page will view 4,000 varying assortments of the work that is on our site. Moreover, visitors can continue to browse the assortments by clicking on Revolve Stories at the bottom of the home page. With the randomized home page assortments, there is no priority at all given to date of submission or patronage rankings. Everyone has an equal opportunity to be seen through this browsing feature, and hence, to make their case for patronage. Visitors who enjoy any of your submissions can also bookmark your author profile page in order to re-visit it, to tell others about it, or to check for new submissions that you’ve uploaded.

What is on my author profile page?

Except for your email address, all the fields that you fill out in the creation of your account will display on your author profile. Certain optional fields (phone number, web site, bio, etc.) will not display if they are left out. We highly recommend that you draft a well-written bio for your profile, as this tells the visitors more about you. Wherever possible, we also suggest that you provide some kind of contact information or web site link so that potentially interested literary agents, publishers, fans, or prospective purchasers may contact you if interested in the work you’ve posted here.

Your profile also displays a chart listing all submissions you currently have up on the site, along with their respective All-Time and This Month’s Rankings. This chart functions as a Table of Contents for all the work you have up on the site, with each listed title functioning as a hyperlink to the page where your submission is posted.

How may visitors access my author profile page?

By clicking on your name and by-line wherever it appears throughout the web site - either through the random home page assortments or through the various site ranking charts. Fans may also bookmark your author profile page and return to it from time to time in order to check up on your earnings, rankings, or new submissions.

For promotional purposes, you may also link to your author profile page on various social media web sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) so that all your friends and contacts may know where to find you on PatronQuo.com. To do so, simply copy and paste your author profile page url as a link in your postings to your friends on these web sites.

How do I find my short stories or novel excerpts once I have submitted them?

As long as you’re logged in, you can always find your profile by clicking on My Account in the upper right corner. Your profile will display all your submitted stories and/or novel excerpts, as well as their performance rankings.

I registered a profile, but I haven’t yet submitted anything. Can visitors still find my profile page?

No. Your profile cannot be seen by a visitor unless you have submitted material on the web site.

V PROMOTIONAL CONCERNS

Can posting a novel excerpt online hurt my chances of getting published?

It is highly unlikely to hurt you, but far more likely to help you. Your novel excerpt functions as a sample for what readers can expect if they had access to your whole novel text. In short, your excerpt should prompt a reader to learn more about where they may purchase your novel. If anything, your excerpt posting on PatronQuo will assist your publisher in marketing your work to as many people as possible. Since you have the option of posting a link to where your novel may be purchased, PatronQuo, in effect, functions as a web site in support of your ongoing efforts to promote published material and unpublished material - the work that potential fans would have otherwise not seen had they not stumbled across it on PatronQuo,.com.

Will it reflect badly on my work if it has not yet earned any patronage?

The only impression that truly affects you is the impression made on those who bother to read your work. Our system is set up to prompt and encourage readers and fans of your submitted work to step up and take action on your behalf - to publicly signal, with their own patronage, that your work deserves to be seen. The idea is that eventually, a pool of fans will discover your work. And if they themselves do not patronize it, perhaps they’ll make the case to others as to why it should be patronized.

To put matters in perspective, it is highly unlikely that one of your readers will think, “Gee, I loved that fantastic short story and novel excerpt, but I can never buy the book or recommend these stories to others because they haven’t yet earned any patronage.”

And do keep in mind that you have all the time in the world for your work to eventually find its audience so long as your work is up on the site, available to receive patronage in any given month. All it takes is a fan here or there to eventually make the discovery and signal their devotion with their own patronage. And you can always act to tweak your work by continually polishing it, and re-submitting it, in an effort to attract more patrons with each new edit.

How do you maintain quality control if submissions are open to everyone?

The whole point of PatronQuo.com is that everyone initially gets a chance up to bat to make their case with the public - and the readers/patrons are the ones that will ultimately vet what’s most worthy of being read on the site. Though we don’t want to set ourselves up as the gatekeepers of quality, we do recognize the problem of “slush submissions” that occurs with any site which opens itself up to the public. So, from time to time, we will be staging a Slaughter of Slush event in which we selectively purge those submissions from the site that are of a noticeably amateur, poorly edited quality (consisting of typos, errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, accompanied by poor formatting). Clearly polished and properly edited works - whether patronized or not - should be secure from being purged as slush.

Ultimately, the aim is to make the site attractive to as many readers as possible - and hence, more attractive to an increasing pool of prospective patrons.

What incentive do I have to get on board so early into your launch, before your site has attracted a sufficient number of patrons?

We’re newly launched. If your work is polished and of a professional quality (whether published or not), and you have submitted it relatively early before we have grown our database, your work will benefit from a ranking system that gives priority to the earlier submission for entries of equal or as-yet no patronage. In time, as the slush submissions eventually get purged, your polished work will rise in the rankings and get an added boost of exposure as we continually grow our visitor traffic, our fan base, and our prospective pool of patrons. Furthermore, the longer you make your work available for patronage on the site, the longer lead time you will have to grow your All-Time Rankings, which records the cumulative payments extended toward you as an artist on the site and for each individual work you’ve submitted with us.

In short, while we’re still relatively small and new, the early submitters will comparatively benefit from our eventual growth in comparison with those who hold off until they see the bandwagon rolling.

How is this web site being promoted?

We are already in contact with a network of highly placed individuals in the industry - publishers, small presses, literary journals, editors, literary agents, bloggers, and various opinion-makers throughout the literary community. Overall, these are the people who decide what is most buzz-worthy in the field of contemporary literature.

In light of the unique features of our online patronage model and ranking system - in a site that is both easy to navigate and attractively laid out - we have a built-in public relations appeal that we fully intend to exploit in various online and print media.

Already, as a newly launched web site, we have reached far into the literary community, and are continuing to do so on a daily basis, as we roll out new functions and promotional strategies, all intended to grow our traffic and, by extension, the pool of prospective patrons.

What do you mean by “the literary death match that never ends?”

So long as your work is posted up on PatronQuo, you’re always in the running to receive patronage and rankings. Unlike typical writing competitions, it doesn’t come down to one big prize for one winner at a single point in time. We’ve planned it so that there will be a constant ebb and flow of leading artists, stories, and novels - and it should carry on perpetually, stoked by the contributions of more and more patrons as they gradually learn about our initiative and come on board. And so long as you’re on board, the opportunity to be repeatedly showcased in our rankings and to earn patronage is always open to you.