Young Writers Society

Hey, guys,

I was reading a book on writing the other day, and it brought up an interesting point. If you post an entire novel online as you write it, and are intending to market that same novel for publishing, it might present a problem. When a publisher buys your manuscript, they buy the explicit right to publish that manuscript, and, if you've posted it online, it's already been published, and many publishers don't want books like that. They know readers won't buy the book if they can read the same material for free online. I just thought I'd warn you guys to be wary. Posting your stuff is fine, but if you plan on actually publishing it, you might not want to.

Oh well, I'm safe on that point. I haven't posted anything notable on here, apart from my historical story which was for my coursework and couldn't be posted anyway.

Still, I'll keep that in mind, Snap!

-Twit

That's true. But I don't think anyone's posted an entire novel here, only portions of a novel, so hopefully they can get away with it.

At any rate, I - personally - wouldn't tell a publisher I've published the piece online. What they don't know, can't get you sued.

Unless they find out. (through google or somesuch) I'm not sure how it works, anyhow, and you're right, probably the majority of the people here are safe on that point, but I thought the information might be useful.

Nah, lookit, say, Brad's Choinophobia. He's simply clicked 'edit' and erased all the chapters he's posted. Google won't bring up any results.

But yeah, the information certainly is useful, and worth keeping in mind if you want to post your pieces here.

There's an easy solution to this: Delete the novel if you're planning on publishing.

Or better yet, find a mod you trust (which isn't a problem on this site) and have them delete the entire thread, not locking it.

Yeah I read that too somewhere and so thats part of the reason I don't post my works here.