Let's Kill A False Rumor Now

Well I'm awfully glad that my publisher disagrees with you and continues to cut me regular royalty checks with no issue.

 

Please see my posts above. You said your work was posted behind a password for critiques. Again, that is NOT the same thing as "publishing" it.

Also, even if a publisher or publishers did make an exception/s, that does NOT mean they agreed with you and that writers should go ahead and publish work themselves before trying to get it trade published. It only means they made one or more exceptions, and counting on being an exception is not the best plan.

 

It was published on LiveJournal for anyone with a LJ login to see. Whether they left me critique or not was immaterial, though I appreciated it when folks left comments. Like I said, I'm not sure if Cordelia or C.S. Pacat had their LJ's set to public, but it's possible. I do know that my publisher did not ask me whether my LJ entries were password protected or not, and didn't seem to care in the least when I fully disclosed to them that I posted UTK online as a WIP over the course of a year.

 

So it was behind a password since people had to have a "login," they could critique it there, and you don't know if the others were set to private or not. And you were published anyway, although it's not even clear that what you did would be considered "published" anyway. It sounds like it wouldn't, but okay, if it was then you were an exception. Got it.

But I am trying to straighten out a serious misconception here that incorrectly keeps newer writers from feeling like they can safely post in the workshop here for critique, and your posts are really kind of all over the place and just confusing the issue.

 

Okay, I'm out as apparently you have a very specific rumor you want to kill and the rumor that I would like to kill has not been invited to the party.

Post in the workshop, yo. Post in the Workshop, it will not kill your chances of being published.In this @Carly Berg and I agree 100%.

 

The discussion threads aren't the issue, though - nobody's trying to publish their discussion posts (I hope). The question is whether Google can find the critique threads.

 

I've come across a lot of literary journals (poetry, short fiction and plays)
that only take unpublished submissions, and they clearly state that
online posting is considered published. They don't specify the type
of forum post i.e. whether or not you need a login to view it.

So if those publications found out that your short story was once
published online, it may harm your chances of appearing in their
pages.

I think it's a simple logic: to publish is to make public; by posting
on a forum you are making public; therefore, by posting on a forum
you have published your work (this could probably be refined and
improved but I haven't got the time right now).

I don't think the password thing holds up. This is still a public
forum open to the world. It is not private.

I'm sure posting excerpts won't harm your chances. But posting
entire short stories or poems probably will, given that most
legit publications* don't like it.


*I mean those publications that are looking for original work.
It may be different for anthologies

 

Two pieces of mine are posted here in the Crit Lounge - and which evolved toward publication, just about.

One is 'published' on a comedy site with six or seven viewers ever.

Tho' that other one, that one was runner up in a big [prestigious] literary, important, [and famous] competition. I used to worry about it a lot, and about how I'd be unmasked as a fraud at the guildhall presentation ceremony hosted by Ronnie Woods.

Sadly, the truth was very much worse. Nobody cared one bit about either me, my stupid little life or even my website passion..

 

Probably it was written in the last century by somebody who is now dead.

 

1) A lot of the wording in the FAQ dates from the very inception of this forum in 2006. We were all pretty green back in the day.

2) Regardless of how green we were, from a legal standpoint (something we have to always keep in mind) we're not going to include wording that in any way states or implies a guaranty on our part. This would make us liable were some unforeseen event to arise in the future. The nature of unforeseen events is that they answer to variables that are not determinable beforehand. Do I think it's safe to post excerpts of work in the Workshop? Yes, of course I do. Go to my profile page and you'll see that I've got plenty of my own posted and would not have done so if I thought otherwise. As already mentioned, it's best to post excerpts of one's work for a number of reasons. Firstly, yes, probably better not to post you whole entire novel in its "fetus form" online. Secondly, it is the fundamental nature of online forums such as our own that there is a known threshold of post length after which it becomes really hard to get anyone to spend their completely unremunerated time critiquing your work.

But... (and I can hear the eyerolls now) I don't engage the Workshop with the mentality that many do. I'm not part of this forum to improve and perfect this piece of writing, this one right here, this singular and unique manuscript in my hand that is the symbol and incarnation of my quest to write. No. I am here to improve as a writer. There is a universe of difference in the two mindsets. My mindset allows me to post things that are really beta versions of scenes, or scenes that I've cut, or scenes that I completely rewrote and this is the old way the scene played out. The feedback I get on those items is feedback on my writing. It doesn't need to be the exact scene or even any scene that will ever end up in my WIP for the feedback I get on it to be of value to me. Regardless, they are my words that I wrote. I know this doesn't parse for many people so I stopped trying to push this idea a long time ago, Piece of Writing vs Writer. I also stopped trying to get people to see the value in giving critique over getting critique because I know that also doesn't parse for a lot of people, and I also realized that since the core of that idea is that giving critique improves me, and since I am the only sure thing that I can have any effect over, then the idea itself only needs to be held by me because, again, at the end of the day when I close my browser window, it's me and my manuscript, not me and your manuscript. (your being the greater, plural you).

 

I think posting your work online may or may not harm your chances, and may or may not improve your chances, essentially. In @Laurin Kelly 's case, she got herself a loyal fan base by posting her work online prior to publication - the loyal fan base is probably what makes the difference here and changes it from "harming" to "improving" your chances. I mean, isn't that the same way 50 Shades got nabbed by a traditional publisher in the end, after all? There are publishers who would consider works that have already been self-published, but this is not industry standard as far as I know.

Whereas if you went and published your work online, did not get a loyal fan base, then tried to push it out to a trad publisher and said publisher finds out your work was already online and sees that it has no fan base despite being available freely - then yes, you've definitely harmed your chances. First publishing rights are gone but I would have thought, more importantly, you've just proven to the publisher that no one would read your work even when it's for free, so what are the chances of the publisher making a return on said work when they're gonna charge every reader £8.99 for a paperback? (or £20 for a hardback?)

So when you post it online, it's a gamble. If you get a fan base, it'll help you. If you don't, it will doom that particular piece of work. And whether you manage to get a fan base depends on a number of factors that may or may not be related to the quality of your work.

However, if the work was password protected, even if you don't get a fan base, you're probably all right because the publisher would never know, and I trust you would never admit to the publisher that "Hey I posted it up somewhere and got exactly zero readers! Wanna publish me?"

So there're two issues: 1) posting work online on a password protected platform, and 2) posting work online in general. If you do #1, your publishing chances shouldn't be affected. If you do #2, then it depends on a variety of factors, however it does not necessarily, conclusively help or doom your chances.

Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong just summarising things as I understood it!

 

This colourised daguerreotype depicts the heady confusion of those early editorial sessions, @Daniel on right side, @Wreybies obscured somewhat.

 

Oh screw it, just read Mattwoolf's quote below. It says it all I think. Waste of time posting legitimate concerns without dealing with the bitchery.

 

@matwoolf , there you go. I've removed my honest opinion so yours can be the showcase.

 

I was referring to publishing online in general, using Laurin's case of for example, using Live Journal. So when I said "first publishing rights are gone", I was not talking about the workshop or any password protected platforms. I'm really talking about any open, public platform without any protection - eg. what could be recognised as the work having been self-published online. I don't think any of us would term posting in the workshop as having been "self-published"

You're right though some definitive legal position would be very helpful, but for that I'm guessing we'd have to have a degree in literary law or know someone who does... and still these things would probably differ from country to country as regards to what's norm and what is the letter of the law etc. I doubt it's as simple as saying "it's all lost" or "you're good to go".

 

I agree with your framing of the issue - we're discussing whether something counts as publishing or doesn't count as publishing.

But I don't really think it's a legal question - I guess it could be, if someone represented a piece as never having been published and a publisher found something that made them disagree and took the case to court. But mostly I think it's in the eye of the publisher, and that means it will almost certainly vary.

Personally, I wouldn't consider something published if it were handed around in printed format at an in-person critique group, and I can't see how there's a significant difference just because the critique group in this case is on-line.

I do think some of the larger publishers would certainly hesitate about publishing something that's been posted in full for general consumption, like on LiveJournal, although @Laurin Kelly's experience makes it clear that some publishers don't mind.

I know that when I had a bitchy review left for one of my books implying that it was repurposed fanfiction (it wasn't) that the person had already read online, I mentioned it to my agent and she thought it was a serious enough issue that she contacted my editor and made it clear the person was talking out of her ass. (Luckily, the review itself made this pretty clear... it was along the lines of "I've read this exact same story as fanfiction, only she changed the characters and the plot and the setting in order to get it published...") But based on this experience it definitely seemed clear that my agent thought my publisher would be pissed if it turned out I had already posted something and then sold it to them.

But I don't think posting a chapter for critique would count as "posted" or "published".

 

Sorry @LinnyV, somebody must have upset you with crit, I'm sorry about that, sorry for being facetious.

 

I understand you are a moderator, but you negated anything you had to say when you used 'probably'.



A tech tip for all- Webpages on www system are rarely ever 'protected' by passwords. A password normally locks a screen (like on your phone), not a server or part of a server (That is up to the webmaster to do). Crawlers follow requests (if programmed to do so), not laws or anything else created to stop them. Period.



Threads like this are the exact reason why users are spread so far across so many forums.



Right now, I am downloading this entire site, yes, the entire site.

 

But do you have any reason to believe publishers care about this?

It's really not a question of internet security. It's a question of whether publishers are going to consider something published.

I'm not sure why you're so worked up about this, but... just because you care doesn't mean publishers do.

And what house is being burned down? What?

ETA: The first line of the chapter I posted for crit was "One moment, the diner was bustling with its usual lunchtime noise: the next moment, silence." When I google that, with quotation marks, there's no result. I don't think publishers are going to poke any further than google.

 

I reached out to Cordelia last night and she confirmed that she has always had her stories on LJ set to Public, which means you did not have to have a password to see them. So she posted Can't Hide From Me (which originally had a different title that I can't recall, but Riptide asked her to change it because it they though it was too common) in its entirety, as a WIP, on a public platform and her publisher didn't even blink before accepting it. They just asked her to take it down ASAP, which she did.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I just want to reiterate that I am not intentionally trying to give people bad advice, I am only going off of my own experience and some others that I know of. In my case, I went back and looked at my publisher's submission guidelines on their website, and it clearly states Less Than Three Press does not require first publication rights. If you've published a story elsewhere first, we will consider it (provided your publication rights have been returned to you).

Riptide's are a little murkier - from their FAQ:

Do you accept reprints / previously-published materials?
Maybe. If you have a long and proven track record, or you’re an existing Riptide author, we may consider a reprint. Otherwise, no.

Which is kind of what @Mckk posted above; if the publisher feels like the number of potential book sales outweighs the prior visibility to readers, it could be in their best interest to offer a contract anyway.

According to Wikipedia, C.S. Pacat posted the first Captive Prince book online and then self-published it in 2013. Captive Prince was then acquired by Penguin Random House, and published commercially in April 2015 in multiple territories. In that particular case, she really won the lottery because an agent reached out to her after she self-pubbed. There's a pretty good article on the whole thing here: http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/penguin-captive-prince-slash-fiction/. I was actually reading Captive Prince on LJ when it all went down (she was part of the way through posting the second book as a WIP if I'm recalling correctly), and it solidified my decision to submit Under the Knife to traditional publishers even though it had bee posted online.

I don't want to steer anyone wrong or hurt an author's chances of being published. But if I had listened to the black and white advice IF YOU PUBLISH SOMETHING ONLINE IT IS DEAD TO PUBLISHERS AND AGENTS I surely would not have accomplished what I have to date. Take it to heart or take it with a grain of salt, it's all the same to me.