Thank you for visiting New Bards' Press. This help faq is to answer the many questions visitors and users of the site might have about New Bards' Press.
If a question is not here, please let us know and we'll answer it.

Thank you,
New Bards' Press

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Is New Bards' Press a vanity press? No. We are not a vanity press for several reasons. The first and most important reason is that we do not charge for you to have your work seen. New Bards' Press is here to provide a venue for writers and readers to enjoy the amazing creative talents not represented by large publishing houses; the internet gives us that medium. One of the great things that New Bards' Press is utilizing for your benefit, via the internet, is the incredible scope of people who will have their work seen by people they could have never reached before, and the same holds true for people who just like to read fresh new literature. Readers will be exposed to and have access to others' literary work like never before.
Secondly we do not publish a printed book of anyone's work from the site. *(Although we have plans to offer a yearly collection of select titles from various authors on the site available once a year.)

Who retains copyrights for submissions to the site? You do. The author of the published title retains all rights for their work, with the following clarification: Implicitly the author grants web publishing rights to New Bards' Press ^LLC otherwise they wouldn't post it to the site. All other rights are retained by the original author of the work. We will occassionaly produce a podcast (to generate attention for the site and highlight some author's submission) and some portions of your published works might be included. If you would rather not have your work featured in this way please let us know via our Contact Us page. We won't use your writings. Web publishing rights revert back to the author if the work is ever removed from the site.

What's the Appreciation stuff I saw on the site? The appreciation system is what makes this site different from many (if not all) of the other writing websites on the web. We know you work hard on your writing. We want to reward that dedication to the craft by allowing members who visit the site an opportunity to give money in appreciation for something you've written and published on New Bards' Press ^LLC. Yes, putting your stories, poetry, and non-fiction on the site could actually earn you money.
Running this site isn't free although most of the features on it are, so yes, we're needing to buy bread, milk and other staples of life, just like everyone else. Part of how we are able to operate is through advertising (which we hope to keep to a bare minimum) and appreciation funds provided to authors, which we will receive a percentage and the rest will go to the author, allow this site to exist. Without the authors posting to the site there would be nothing to read, without the appreciation system it would be difficult to maintain a site for them to publish to in the first place. We provide a mechanism to allow authors to post and if the winds are favorable get some money in return.
Full details on the Appreciation system are online now under the Terms and Conditions page. Please check it out and consider showing some appreciation. It's really why posting to New Bards' Press pays off... for everyone.

I created an account but still can't provide reviews or ratings. Creating an account is how you log into the site.
At New Bards' Press we've provided a way to create personas that are reflective of your writing, not just a site's login information. Each account user is allowed to create two Pseudonyms which they use to publish, write reviews and provide ratings on the site. You must create at least one Pseudonym in order to use the more interactive features of the site.

Ratings: Providing a rating is OPEN to all visitors of the site. Simply click the rating (1=low through 10=high) you feel represents your opinion of the story, poem or article you just read. Everyone gets one(1) rating per title whether signed into the site at the time of giving the rating or not. To have your pseudonym associated with a title's rating be sure to log into the site first. Once you rate a title that rating is permanent so give it some thought and provide a fair rating. If you would like to give a review that would be fantastic but this feature requires an account on the site.(see above)

Pseudonym? Why do I need a pseudonym? What is a pseudonym anyway? A pseudonym is a fictional persona used by an artist, particularly writers, when sharing their works with the world. It allows for the author to publish something different than what they are usually "known" to produce.
At New Bards' Press we wanted to utilize that freedom, but within limits that would work for a writing site. Toward that end we allow each account to create two pseudonyms.
You should choose your first pseudonym carefully for that will be your public face, and once a pseudonym is created it can only be deleted, not changed.
We also wanted to allow people the flexiblity to create a name that would be less 'internet' and provide a more polished professional persona for their published titles. In this way you can log in with 'writer2938' as your account but create a pseudonym that more accurately reflects your style. (Note: Incidentally as an added bonus it has proven effective against spammers posting unnecessary, unwanted content on this site. I get dozens (or use to anyway) of account registrations but since bots never go past the first account page to create a pseudonym you won't see any automated story posts for Russian brides or "appendage" enhancement products. We think this is a good thing.)

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Here for your convenience are all the help icon descriptions used on this site. They are found when clicking on an icon that looks like this:

Author Notes: Author Notes are optional. This is a brief statement by the author about the published work. If this is a draft, the author could mention a section where they are particularly interested in receiving feedback, if this is a polished story or a continuation of a series the author could use this section to thank their fans and for 'hope you enjoy the next chapter' type comments. Where as what actually happens in this chapter should be briefly written up in the 'Brief Synopsis' section.

Author's Response:
An author may respond to any feedback left by a reviewer. Keeping it short and sweet (and civil) is one of the goals of the feedback system and as such reviewers as well as authors are limited to a certain character count. If any review is overly offensive please bring it to our attention, otherwise read, listen and hopefully learn.

Brief Synopsis: A synopsis is optional but highly encouraged. This is a brief introduction to your submission. The synopsis is used to tell a little bit about the story, poem or article so people can know what to expect.

Delete Favorite Pseudonym: Deleting a pseudonym from your list works in two ways:
1) If you are sorting the list by ALL PSEUDONYMS and select Delete->Yes then it will delete that favorite for all pseudonyms you have.
2) If you are sorting by a specific pseudonym and choose to Delete->Yes a favorite it will only delete that favorite from that pseudonym.

In this way you can selectively delete favorites. If at any time you want to add the profile again you can easily click on its link and add it to your favorites.

Delete Published Title : Choosing DELETE will remove the selected title completely (including all reviews, and ratings) from the site. It will be as if it never existed. You should only delete if you are absolutely sure you no longer want this Published Title on New Bards' Press.
THERE IS NO UNDO FROM THIS ACTION.

Deleting a Pseudonym: Deleting a pseudonym is currently not supported. When it is available it should be used rarely if at all. Deleting a pseudonym removes the pseudonym (not the account) permanently from the site. Everything the pseudonym has ever published will be deleted, every review the pseudonym posted, every rating that was ever given will be purged. It will be as if the pseudonym never was. It's a complete and total erasure. Be absolutely sure you want to delete a pseudonym. There is no going back. Seriously, we don't keep deleted content on some secret server. Your pseudonym is one of two public faces you have on this site and shouldn't be handled lightly. Be absolutely sure when creating a pseudonym and be even more sure when deleting it.

Draft: Note: The Draft feature is currently not available. We are working on its functionality and hope to have it online soon. Selecting 'draft' for your published entry lets readers know that the work is in progress. Any piece that is in draft mode may not be rated but may be read and receive reviews by users of the site. Once a piece has been taken out of draft mode, by the author, it may be rated as well as receive reviews. Reviews do not reset but are flagged as having been given during the draft process.

Features Display: This is used to hide optional features that, while important, aren't visually necessary when first loading a page.

Font Size: Because of the myriad compatiblity issues as well as known and yet not fixed bugs in the dozens of browsers available Font Size attributes have been set up for IE 6 only. Some browsers will accept these settings but many will not, notably Netscape. This is a feature we'd like to implement in the future but right now more pressing matters warrant our attention. Thank you.

Genres: Every entry published at New Bards' Press must have at least one genre. Genre is defined as 'a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.' Only the major themes that fit within a particular genre should be selected. Genres tell the reader what to expect from a particular story, poem or article and makes searching for your submission more accurate.
You may select more than one genre for any work, so as to give you maximum flexiblity and control in defining exactly what type of story, poem or article you are submitting. Do not select all the check boxes hoping to get greater hits. It will not happen and you will become very sad - for various reasons. If there are questions just ask.
If a particular genre is not available for any category please let us know. We will review it and if warranted add it to that category. Thank you.

Help Icon: This graphic is used to signal to the user that additional information on a topic is available. For novice users, or experienced users who just need a little refreshing, the help icon system is in place to assist with use of the site.

HyperLink Color: A Hyperlink is a HTML tag (also simply called a 'link') that allows the user to navigate to other pages or activate special scripting functions. When you move your mouse over a link the cursor usually turns into a hand, like what it did when you hovered over this image. You can then click the left mouse button to activate that link, which can take you to another page on the web or as in this instance provide helpful information.

Language: The language text or country icon flag is used to let readers know in what language the work is written.

Make Favorite: This will place the profile into your favorite authors panel. You will then have immediate access to any new submissions by this author under your My Favorites link.

Plain Text (.txt) File: Plain text files can be saved out using the 'save as' feature under the file menu of most word processors. This online tutorial will show you how if have questions.(NOTE: The link will display in a new window so you won't lose whatever was done on this page.)

Rating a Published Entry: (1 is low, 10 is high)
Rating a submitted file is a way to provide feedback for a story, poem or nonfiction work without the need for a review. The rating system is set up to provide a quick look at any particular published entry and see what others think about it. It is important to understand that ratings, like reviews, are opinions and should be treated as such. Opinions vary depending on the individual so if something is rated low, why not give it a try? You might have a better feel for the piece and can write a review supporting your position. The community will benefit from your time and so will the author.

Reader Display: Reading Pane text not to your liking? Go to My Site Settings and adjust the colors, size and word count values to customize your reading experience.
Note: You must have a registered account and sign into the system in order to customize these settings.

Reviews: Reviews are a way for the user to provide feedback for an author's published submission on the site. In order to give a review you must create at least one pseudonym. All reviews are public and require the reviewer to be logged into the site before the review option is given.

Selecting Category or Genre: Selecting any category (or single genre) will filter the search results to include only those titles from that entire category or from a single genre type. This filter option is available for any type of search, including the Muse's random selection.

Series: Series designation is optional. Any published entry that is part of a larger story line may be identified by its Series Title. A series title is used to identify scope or continuation of stories, poetry, or nonfiction that can be broken up into different parts. It is is not recommended that you use the series feature as a way to break up chapters of the same story; although if the chapters are particularly long and part of a continuing larger epic story line (or submitted with month long breaks in between each part) the series feature would be ideal.
It would be easier for interested readers to quickly find the latest work submitted by you in that series, rather than just knowing something new was submitted.

Show Appreciation: Showing appreciation for an author's efforts is how this site is able to operate and it's a great gesture of praise for the author. A majority of the money donated (after PayPal processing charges, which we have no control over) will go directly to the author, the rest is used to keep the site running. We hope you enjoy the many stories, poetry and articles posted on our site and if you have spare change laying around it's always appreciated, not only by New Bards' Press, LLC but the many fine authors who submit to this site. Thank you.

Summary Report: Summary reports provide an overview of what is happening with your account on a weekly, or monthly basis for the current month. All information is broken down by Pseudonym and contains details related to donations, number of reviews and any recent rating changes for submissions. The website has more detailed records of any particular Pseudonym but summary reports can be very useful for an overall view of your account.

Thank you for your show of appreciation.
Unfortunately because of the fees associated with PayPal transactions anything less than one dollar cannot be processed successfully. We hope you understand and will consider another amount above a dollar. Thank you.

Title Status: The status of any title can be set to Public (viewable by anyone on the site), or Not Public (only viewable by the author of the title). This is a great alternative to using the DELETE option, which will remove it completely. Changing the title's status simply flags it internally so it doesn't display on the site during searches.
It should be noted that any title set to 'Not Public' will not factor into your pseudonym's ratings, even if that title has ratings associated with it.

Title: Every entry published must have a title. A title is an identifying name given to a piece of work. Titles can be used to denote a singular piece or different chapters for works in a series. Titles for publications and Series Titles are not the same and should be used in conjunction with each other not synonymously. Titles in either case are limited to 128 characters (including spaces). Choose your titles carefully. Once created they can not be changed.

Words Per Page: This is an approximation of how many 'words' per page you would like when reading any submission. Due to many factors (screen resolution, font size, words in the submission, etc) this isn't an exact number but only an estimate. This site sets a standard word count at 500 words (approximately 2500 characters) for each page displayed. But you may want more or less. We aim to please.

Writing Prompt Response: If this title is in response to a writing prompt on the site, whether via a podcast or author submitted prompt, select the prompt in the drop down. Any titles associated with Writing Prompts will be displayed with those prompts on the Writing Prompt page. Please don't select a writing prompt if this isn't meant to be a prompt response. Thank you.

We love good fan fiction but due to copyright issues titles in the Fan Fiction genres cannot receive appreciation disbursements. We appreciate you publishing your story and hopefully the reviews and ratings you receive from fellow authors and readers will keep you inspired and sharing your creative vision with us on New Bards' Press.
Thank you.