Does posting work here harm our chances of being published?

I joined here less than a week ago. This may seem like a stupid question, but here goes anyway. I have written over a hundred essays so far and am interested in publishing a collection of them. In all likelihood, I will self published them, probably in e-book form. I am just starting to learn about all this. Writing is the easy part. Actually making my work public and marketing it is a whole different matter.

I have posted many of my essays on my website/blog in the past year or two but never publicized them, so it's extremely unlikely that anyone has read them, or if so, only a very few at that. A few months ago, I removed them from my blog by switching to the private setting on Wordpress. Since Google probably has searched most of my blog posts/essays by now, does that mean I can't go to a publisher? At all? What if I self published them in an ebook through Amazon, Kindle, etc? Can I do that? As of right now I am hazy as to the difference between publishing and self publishing, so that's why I am asking the question. Will any magazine refuse to publish an essay of mine just because I had it on my blog for a few months, with no one at all even reading it?


Bill

 

If you self-publish, then this entire discussion of things being on the web, not being on the web, considered published, not considered publish, all of it is moot. It doesn't matter in the least. You don't even need to worry about it.

If your plan is traditional publication, then you do need to concern yourself with it. There's no knowing the manner in which publishers can/will search for items you present to the them to know if they are really getting into an untouched work, so there is always a concern when you post, blog, or make digitally available any significant portion of your work.

 

well worth bumping, aberdeen!

cog's warning is a must read for anyone who hopes to be published...

...short answer: you can go, but will have next to no chance of getting a paid credit...

...long answer: most magazines will only buy 'first' publishing rights... and since you used up the first rights by posting the work, you can now only [honestly] sell it as a 'reprint'... and very few venues will pay for reprints... if you lie and they find out what they paid you for is available for free on the internet [all acquired/archived material is out there in etherville forever], you'll be in deep doo-doo...

...of course... it's your work and you have every right to self-publish it... but who's going to want to pay to read what they can find for free?... or will be happy with the author if they find that out after they've paid you?...

...see above...

 

If you post a story of yours to an online message board it is not published. This or any other forum would not hold the copyright of your story. From Section 101 of the Copyright Act:

The distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.

Posting your story on an online message board falls under display of work. You are not posting it with the intent for publication like you would be if you submitted a story to a blog or to a popular trafficked website. You are displaying it for critique. It's no different than if you are required to post an essay for college online for other students to read. It is not published.

You could however diminish the value of your work if a publisher can google your name or search for your story online and find it posted all over the web. Publishers often want first publication rights for distributing purposes. If your work has been posted all over the internet and re-posted on blogs, websites etc, the publisher may consider it void of first publication rights.

 

Publishing has nothing to do with transfer o copyright. Putting the work up for public consumption is publication, at least to some degree. You won't be considered a published author for putting your story on a web site, at least not be traditinal publishers. However, when it comes to purchasing the right or first publication, thos same publishers may consider the work published. You lose on both fronts - you aren;t considered a hot property by publishers, which would improve your chance of acceptance, and your story is worth less because the prospective publisher can't secure exclusivity for the term of the contract.

"Published" doesn't have a single, fixed meaning. It is open to interpretation, and it will always be interpreted by a potential publisher in a way that gives he publisher the greatest advantage, even extending to after the signing of the contract.

In theory, the publisher could break the contract upon "discovering" an online copy on the grounds they purchased exclusive rights for the duration of the contract, and that you violated that agreement by "concealing" the fact that the writing is available through a separate venue.

This could be a fallback strategy if your book bimbs in the market, not earning the costs to prepare it and distribute it.

 

That's what I always suspected, Cogito. Technically your work hasn't been 'published' by putting it up all over the internet. In the eyes of traditional publishers, however, they're not going to like that one bit as, like you said, they want exclusive first access to your work. If they see that a random Internet forum has had that pleasure instead, it hurts your chances. I have a theory that they also don't want to chance any legal problems if they see your work already posted on the internet. After all, how do they know all those scenes and character discussions aren't, in fact, someone else's work? How do they know that those posts are, in fact, yours?

Also, I believe there's another risk of putting work you wish to publish online. What if someone else, too lazy to come up with their own stories, saw yours and said to themselves, "I might just write that" and proceed to take your story for their own knowing that there's a good possibility of you not being able to stop them.

However, if you self-publish, or are only doing this for a hobby, then by all means, share it with the internet.

 

cog is right on all counts...

why would any publisher want to pay you for your work in order to sell it, if it can be read for free anywhere on the internet?

 

Wow is all I can say. Actually writing may be the easiest thing for me to do, instead of dealing with publishing, marketing, copyright laws, and the rest. I appreciate everyone's feedback here. It looks as if I will just self publish and hope for the best. At least I now know to keep all my essays private on Word Press, until I am ready to deal with the public.

 

why wordpress instead of just writing them on your own computer with ms word?

 

Some people just favor different word processors. If my laptop still had it, I would be using Microsoft Works. Word feels too...stiff, too formal though it is a great program.

Use whatever helps your creativity is what I say.

 

It depends how you define public consumption. If you're throwing up all your work on message boards that can be googled then, yes, publishers would consider it already published.

But if you join a member only forum that is a writers workshop and you post a story of yours on it for critique, then no, it is not published. Since it cannot be found by google a publisher would not even realize it had been put up on the internet.

 

not necessarily true...

first, not all sites' workshop/critique sections are 100% crawler-safe, despite what the admin may wish to believe and tell their members...

and even if the section is 100% safe from google's acquisition, anyone viewing the material could copy it to their own 'open' website, or other internet site, or email it at will...

which is why it's best to never post any significant part or complete piece of work anywhere on the internet, if you may wish to have it published any time in the future...

 

Exactly. There's no telling if another user is going to take your work and put it up on Facebook saying, "Read this awesome piece my classmate wrote!" Or on a more darker note, "Read this awesome piece I wrote!"

 

And if they put it on facebook, unless it goes totally viral, it is pretty irrelevant.

I know people who are in this online writing workshop who post their stories regularly. One of them has sold a book of their stories.

I think you guys are correct that people shouldn't throw their work online because many publishers would consider it having lost first publishing rights. But, there's a little bit of paranoia going on here. A private members only forum that is unsearchable from search engine isn't entirely safe from all the what if scenarios. But neither is it a white line that shall not be crossed.

Take for instance the Gotham Writers Workshop courses that you can take online. If a student posts his work on the private forum for other students to comment on does that make it published? Is it un-publishable after that? No and no. It is not being thrown out into the ether of the world wide web. It's being shared on a private forum. And if a few people share it with others, unless it goes totally viral, it would have no impact on future publication.

 

I don't think many who publish would be here poasting. I think everyone in this forum worries too much.

 

True, but not everyone will think to take a private online writing course to share their works. The first places they'll go are writing forums like this one. Hell, I was one of them, and before my year-long departure, I used to plaster my stuff all over this and other forums. Seriously, google 'Mishu' or 'Santarnica', and I assure you, Google will redirect you to every post I made about them. While I'm not expecting the internet to go crazy over one little character or the name of one little ship that I mentioned every now and then, I imagine that were I to attempt to publish a book using Mishu or Santarnica, the publishers would likely google them first, find them on the internet, and be disappointed as they would've lost first publishing rights to the character/setting. And that's just mentioning them. I used to post Chapter One of my blind detective story (Amos Garnier, for those who miiiiight remember him) all over the internet, so yeah, if they could find Mishu/Santarnica, they could also find Amos. After all, I just found all three of them through a quick google search.

Now, would that stop me from writing them anyway, in my own spare time for a hobby? No, they're my characters after all, but the odds of them being publishable (which would have already been drastically low anyway) would be more are less sunk.

As @mammamaia said, even if the admin of the private writing forum had best intentions, there's no telling what other viewers of that forum will do to it. All we're saying is that the internet has no concept of privacy, so submitting large tracts of a work you plan to publish on the internet is publishing suicide.

 

Would it matter if you posted a different story that used a lot of the same characters and setting material?

 

It shouldn't. That's what I'm doing on this forum. They can't critique story but they can look at writing style and critique that.

 

My plan is to write a few short stories about my setting that introduce some of the characters and plot elements.

 

Yeah that could work. Honestly if you ended up modifying them for the later work you could get away with it, I think.

 

If in doubt, just post a short excerpt instead of the whole thing.

 

For whatever reason, my privileges to reply to you or others in the long thread on seeking help from other writers has been revoked. Everyone will have to wait a month or two until I self publish a book of my essays.

 

You're only sixteen. What am I bothering to even deal with someone so very young. No way would I ever send you an essay of mine.

 

Yeah they closed that thread. Don't spill it into here, please

 

<hastily drags the thread back to the point>

Um...my question may be similar to Adenosine's: suppose I posted my work here, but once I get it out to publishing, I change the names, and the exact specific events that I put on display for the forum? Would I get away with it, or would they catch it? The plot's the same and all, but instead of, say, Amos washing dishes in a tavern, the story I want to publish is about another character in somewhat similar circumstances in the same exact time period with the same character arcs?