Does posting work here harm our chances of being published?

Wait first of all, how would a publisher find out whether or not it has been posted on the internet?

 

I'm new here so I was wondering where do I go to post a chapter of my first novel? I know that I could only go for one shot and not the whole entire book because I'm planning on actually publishing this book.

 

It'd probably be safer to just post an excerpt of your story, or better yet, write a excerpt for a story you don't plan to actually publish one day. Don't post a whole chapter, bad idea.

 

Personally, this thread sounds like a lot of stabbing in the dark. So what I did is posted this question up on Yahoo Answers where there are a lot of experienced writers and basically got this impression:

Publishers do actually accept stories that were previously submitted online. 50 Shades of Gray is the biggest example of this right now. BUT, before you all give a collective sigh of relief and start posting your entire story on here, it's not that simple. When I researched the answer, all stories that had been seen online first, and later went to print, gained immense popularity during their online run in public forums. So the publishers were willing to chance it if it's "proven" in some degree. But most publishers would rather not deal with it when they don't have to. That means that your book is going to have to be amazing for them to chance publishing a novel or short story seen entirely online first. And when it comes down to the wire, where publishers are considering two equally promising submissions but can only publish and market one, previous online versions are going to be taken in consideration.

Even if you did post an excerpt or two, you may not have ruined your chances completely. The jury is still out on whether or not the "don't publish" online is the rule when pertaining to short portions of your story, particularly when they reveal very little about the plot and characters. I'm sure it absolutely doesn't apply to telling people what your story is about. Private forums are a good, safe bet for writers. Critters.org would love to give you guys lists of success stories of people who posted entire stories on their forum that later saw official publication.

And the fear that someone might come along and steal your story? Won't happen. If it did, they are then the worst plagiarizer on the face of the planet. If I were to steal a story, I'd probably go with some long forgotten piece that saw publication, just not success. Especially if it seemed way ahead of its time. Stealing a rough copy from an unproven author isn't exactly something that spells "Gold mine" for me.

 

I think its risky to post your work in the internet. You might have a golden idea, someone might steal it, add their own twist to it and publish it before you.

 

if they can do that, more power to them! Ideas are more or less worthless. It's the skill in developing the idea into a great story that distinguishes a writer.

 

Well, if that's the case, I sure hope they do great with Mishu Jerni 'cause the way things are going with me, she'll be lucky if her story reaches the shelves when I'm seventy.

EDIT TO ADD:
Here's something I think we're missing. There are two sides in this thread that says one thing or another: some say it's no big deal, doubt a few excerpts will hurt. Some say that yes, putting anything on the internet related to stories you want to publish will damage your chances. So new writers, just focus on writing out that first draft first. Don't worry about the publication.

 

Question: If I posted first drafts of chapters (which have been re-written to the point of deletion in the book by now) and listed them as such several years ago to get feedback from friends on social media, how much of an issue would the publisher have with that? Also if, hypothetically, I scared myself while reading this and deleted all the urls using webmaster (and I'm not talking about the 90-day deal. If you own the page you can delete the content from your end and then delete it from search results and google as a whole using a 'remove outdated page' request.) would they even be able to find out?

Also, more importantly, would they have an issue with a content sharing app like google docs? You can't search for it and need to be given a password (or viewing/commenting permissions) by me personally, but hypothetically someone I've given permissions to could make a copy of the document and post it on the internet (they haven't and they won't because if they did those people would disappear pretty quickly) but, would they view that as 'self published'?

 

I think you're fine on both of those.

Publishers expect authors to be sharing their work with limited groups of people, they expect authors to be posting excerpts, etc. It really isn't a big deal.

 

question, do people still get their stories copyrighted? and if so at which point? After you have a full synopsis written, or do they require you to have a percentage of the story written? Also, do you hesitate posting your stories on here in fear of strangers stealing ideas?

 

You have the copyright as soon as you write it. If you want to register it, I would do it when the novel is done, or earlier if the incomplete novel will be published in some form. If you go with a traditional publisher, they should take care of that for you.

 

Never. There's nothing new under the sun. Ideas are just a box of unassembled Legos; the magic happens upon assembly.

 

Most people have their own ideas they want to write, usually too many. You'd have to pay someone to consider writing one of yours.

 

haha yeah, in fact my current WIP is sort of a play on Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which I never actually watched, and my theme was developed before that show existed, but just goes to prove that yes, there's no new thing under the sun. Usually.

 

Precisely. One of my WIPs was inspired by two scenes from two different stories that could not be more different: a scene from the film Brideshead Revisited (the film, not the 80's miniseries) and a scene from Octavia Butler's Wild Seed. One is Edwardian fra-fra-fra and the other is Science Fiction. And the scenes were merely inspiration. Any work to which you give consideration will have uncounted similarities to other works if your battery of knowledge and engagement is large enough and wide enough. We exist within the paradigm of our culture and the art that describes it. We cannot help but be affected by what has come before, much as we might rage against the idea.

 

Yep, my own WIP was partially inspired by a movie, that I only later found out was inspired by a book. I read the book (this is long after I've drafted my WIP), and it turns out the book is in many ways (but not too many) remarkably similar to my WIP.

 

Which is why I think I like anime so much. To me, they do have some fresh ideas, even if they aren't really fresh. Their worldly view and culture is different enough that if feels fresh to me.

 

With that said, remember that you can engage the crit process one of two ways: You're either here to improve your writing overall, or you're hear to just improve a particular piece of writing. If you're here for the former, then you don't need to post actual "live" sections of your work to get feedback on your style, your manner, your tone, your voice, your dialogue. I'm sure you've got thrown away scenes that didn't work out in the grand scheme, but are representative of the skill you are bringing to bear, yes? I am sure you've got little projects that never went anywhere, but were written by your hand, yes? Post those and then you don't need to worry about any of the obsessive concerns that has kept this thread going for 19 pages' worth of posts.

 

What if you posted a short story here on the forums, then decided that you wanted to expand it into a novel to publish later on?

 

It would be such an altered work that it would not make any difference. My main WIP answers to exactly that dynamic. It started life as a short story I entered into one of the writing contests here long, long ago. The greater work that has expanded and grown from that initial work makes the initial work seem like little more than an outline of what came later. I'm not worried about it in the least.

 

This is good to know, luckily none of my story is online anywhere!
I also noticed that on Amazon self publishing they have an option to put your book in their library for 3 months but during this time frame you are not allowed to have your book published by anyone else!
Just so you know

 

Before I got back into writing, I did a lot of music. I cannot stress enough the importance and the security (both of the 'product' and one's own peace/piece of mind) that comes in getting your work copyrighted upon completion. Always play it safe than sorry.

 

For writing, at least, your work is copyrighted as soon as it's written down (in most jurisdictions). You may be talking about registering copyright? This is a big thing in the US and maybe elsewhere, but certainly not everywhere.

 

Music must be a different kettle of fish. I've never seen anyone who knows what they're talking about telling writers to register the copyright to their work. Waste of money.

 

I'd rather pay a small two-digit dollar amount for copyright as opposed to a multi-digit dollar amount in court costs.