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Mitch, check your billing info (click the "whatta" menu on the upper right of your screen, then Billing). See if the renewal took place. The most likely reason is that it didn't auto-renew. In fact, I just had to enable auto-renew in my account. I thought it was, but I can't be sure anymore.

Do they have a restriction on how many agencies you can approach simultaneously? Naturally, there are countless agencies and publishers. One way to gauge them is online reviews, although I assume you've done that.

Good luck.
Dirk

FYI, this newest member is impersonating the real Suzanne Redfearn (including the fake picture), a very successful author. I've asked her to remove the impersonating info, otherwise we'll close the account. Oddly enough, we just had another imposter try the same thing a few days ago with another well-known author whose books are being adapted for Netflix. I suspect it's the same person. If the imposter put as much effort into writing as they do impersonating others, they might one day produce something worth reading.

It should fall under unpublished since this is a private site behind a paywall. As long as you don't post your writing here with visibility set for the internet (i.e., widest exposure), you should have no trouble. If you want to go the extra step of only posting it to a private group to limit the number of members who can see it, that's even more secure as long as you again exclude internet when posting it.

From Gemini:

In most cases, yes, publishers will still consider a work that has been posted to a private, paywalled workshop site to be unpublished.

The key distinction for publishers is not whether a handful of people have seen it, but whether the work has been made widely available to the general public and thus lost its "first rights" value.

Here is a breakdown of why a private workshop site is generally not an issue:

Limited Audience: A private site with a membership or paywall is not considered a public venue. The audience is small, and the work is not discoverable by search engines like Google. A publisher is primarily concerned with the work having been put into the public domain where it can be widely read, which would hurt its marketability.

Purpose for Feedback: Publishers understand that writers need to refine their work, and they know that workshops are essential to that process. The purpose of these sites is to produce a better manuscript for submission, not to act as a public library.

The Free Trial Period: The short free trial period for new members is unlikely to be a problem. The audience is still limited to a select group of people who have signed up for the service, not the general public.

The most important thing to do is to be honest with a publisher or agent if they ask about the manuscript's history. You can simply state that it was circulated for feedback on a private, members-only workshop site. This is a very common and accepted practice in the industry.

Thanks, Tamsin. I flagged them for deletion and deleted the spammers' accounts.

Beige, actually. Orange cats are just rusty beige ones. :-) Albeit just as cute.

He already does sleep next to me. I could stop him from doing that, but I'm happy if he's happy. He has started nibbling a little harder on my skin, though, after I give him some chin and head scratches, which he loves (and requests). He's definitely not biting, but it is somewhat unpleasant.

Thanks, Marilyn.

I've been allergic to most fragrances for decades, so I only use unscented organic products.

I have two highly rated air purifiers in the upstairs bedrooms, but the bathroom is too small, with no outlets (it's an older townhouse) except by the sink, which are fully used. It may have stunk because he accidentally kicked one small "easter egg" out of the litter while trying to cover it, which I didn't see. It didn't smell nearly as much the next day when he covered it properly, although I now clean up the litter as soon as I see him go.

I'm glad to hear that wet food causes less of a smell. One cat-lover at the shelter said she stopped giving her cat dry food because it kept causing urinary issues, perhaps because her cat was dehydrated. And Gandalf doesn't like the dry food anyway. He'll happily ignore it unless he gets too hungry. He's always on the hunt for food (human or otherwise, lol), just not desperate enough to always eat his dry food. And I got him a couple of cat fountains for upstairs and downstairs that he really likes, so he's drinking quite a bit.

The shelter advised me to contact their vet to discuss his itchiness. I have to go there around Sept. 16 anyway for them to follow-up on other open medical issues, so they can look at it then. The weird thing is, he can reach both cheeks with his back paws to scratch with. I've seen him do it, which is what keeps me guessing. Perhaps he just prefers the way I scratch.

I figured mixed food might be a culprit, but until the vet advises otherwise, they want me to keep him on the food approved by that same vet, most of which is mixed sources. I've already started stocking up on single-source wet food (Hills Science Diet). It seemed like common sense to me not to mix different protein sources for the same reason you noted.

The flea and tick medication they use is a prescription brand only available through vets here. The over-the-counter products here are rather pathetic based on the reviews. I've checked his fur for anything visible but saw nothing. He is one super-clean cat. Barely sheds too, except when stressed (the two times I picked him up from the shelter, after that very little).

He just planted his tiny heinie on my mousepad, so I'll end here.

Thanks, Tamsin. I have a large supply of Tidy Cats Lightweight Unscented waiting in the wings. I opened a large bucket of a Tidy Cats scented product, and practically choked, the fragrance was so intense. Fortunately, the shelter was able to use it.

Perhaps I should have named him Mazda ("zoom zoom") instead. He gets a serious case of the zoomies at night between midnight and 1 AM. I didn't realize it previously because I originally kept him locked in my office until I could make the rest of the house cat-safe. At the time, I figured his nightly escapades were just him being frustrated at being locked in the office, although it's huge and has become a cat paradise.

Once I let him out into the rest of the house, I saw his first zoomie. He yowled and took off for the opposite side of the house. When I called him, he looked back, and because I had most of the lights off, his eyes looked completely black (from widened pupils), which freaked me out for a moment. I wondered if I was adopting a demonic cat. An angel by day; demon-spawn by night. There may be a short story there. :-)

And for those who don't know, carnivore poop stinks to high heaven. If he goes at night in the litter box in the bathroom, I have to get up and deal with it right away, otherwise the whole floor stinks. The cat litter the shelter asked me to use (since he's still their cat for the moment) is environmentally friendly and pet friendly, but it's not very good for masking #2. Yeesh!

Having now briefed you all on my cat's bowel movements, I'll allow you to proceed with breakfast. Bon appetit! :-)

Below is what I posted regarding points when Sol made the change in April to pay more points (there was no change to how much it cost to post). I tested those numbers. I never did get around to updating the linked post with the points math for poetry, though....

https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/forums … ntest.html

I'll have a look at your numbers for you soon.

We needed to incentivize existing members to read the work of new members, hence the new member bonus. It really shouldn't be necessary to incentivize people to read new material since the author will no doubt ask you to do so if you review something old. Also, new stuff appears on your home page as they post it, so we tend to default to those unless we're still reviewing something old for them, assuming they still need the feedback. If in doubt, ask.

And you have several options for dealing with old stories in your own portfolio. When I finished writing the first draft of "The Rise of Connor" and wanted to stop new readers from starting to read it, I simply deactivated a bunch of opening chapters and added a note to content summary, steering them to v2.

I didn't want to take the whole thing down right away because some of my reviewers hadn't reached the end. That's still the case in a couple of instances because members come and go as life dictates, so I'm leaving it up for when some of those folks return but I moved it to the end of my portfolio.

Funny thing about Booksie. That's Sol's other site, which is where most of the new development goes.