So, if you post a story to your blog or to a website, you can blow your chance at getting it published. But, what if you post a video or audio recording online of you reading the same story? I mean, if you went to an event with 100 people and passed out copies of your work, some publishers would consider it published at that point. But, if you were paid to read your work for a similar event, as far as I've ever heard, no publisher or publication anywhere would then consider it published, as you were just doing a reading. So what happens when you post a video or mp3 of you reading your work online?
I'd say it's probably the same as posting the text. It doesn't sound any different than the book CD's you can listen to in your car.
If you want to post it online for a select audience, why not make a private blog for that purpose? Invitation or password protected, though invitation is more selective... I have a private writing blog to post bits and pieces of works in progress as I have them done, for my other close family/writer friends, but am really rather selective about who gets in. I could only have a maximum of 100 people on the list, but I have nowhere near that many in there right now. As I understand it, since the audience is limited, this falls under the small number of copies handed around not-really-published end of things... If you really want it out there, why not go the self-publishing rout and run with the Kindle and/or Amazon store? And if you really want a thing submitted and published traditionally, why not submit it?
On this site, it will be deleted. Writing is posted for critique, not just "to share", and all material posted for critique must be directly posted as text - no attachments, offsite links, or other supplementary materials. Also read: Attention, please, regarding offsite links
Actually, audio rights and print rights are generally separate issues. So there's a chance that an audio recording wouldn't affect rights when trying to sell a story. But as Cogito says, it's not allowed on this site
I seem to have failed to express my original topic clearly, as I never mentioned posting a thing to this site, nor about private blogs... and self-publishing, where did that come from? I appreciate the responses, but really it was just a post about the potentially differing statuses of posting a text-based story online, and audio-recordings, as at the very least it seems to be a gray area that even experienced writers I've talked to aren't quite sure, which is why I thought it would be an interesting discussion. For example, it would be a breach of copyright laws to post the full text of an author's story to your blog, yet it seems perfectly okay (or at least that gray area) if you post a recording on youtube of them doing a public reading. But yeah, general writing issues, not site questions. Hope I didn't give the impression I was talking about posting to the site, or linking to such posts, was just wanting to discuss the questions I had in the OP, really. As Banzai mentions, they seem to be different rights, and the online postings of readings seems to be an interesting gray area (a loophole, for something? lol).
Well, you are talking about possibly blowing you chances at publishing, which you appear to be concerned about, so self-publishing is a natural progression for a person who wants to get their work out. It was a last thought tossed out there before hitting post, on my end at least. I haven't read the rest of the replied, but it clearly didn't just come from nowhere. If in doubt, and you want to be sure not to hurt your chances, DON'T. If you want to show long distance friends or family, you are safe putting it out there and keeping it password protected or invitation only. I'd think it would be perfectly fine to publish something and follow that up by a video reading. But then, you'd have to ask your publisher at that point. Other way around could be sketchy.
Almost forgot since this thread go buried so fast. I talked to someone who's pretty knowledgeable about this kind of thing (or seemed to be) and she said print and other rights are indeed separate, and while it can be a gray area at times, strictly speaking posting readings of your work online doesn't in fact impede on first print rights. Seems to make sense, but also be a sort of loophole for people to post work online. Weird bit of gray area. (and haven't been asking about myself, personally, but just generally wondering what insights people have on the issue or what they think about it)
