Does posting work here harm our chances of being published?

I don't think that posting work here is harmful for the chances of being published. It will be dangerous for you sometime but one approach you can put here is you just give some fresh stories to publisher which you didn't post online I think that will help you to for your stories being published.

 

I never publish my works online, as I afraid of plagiarism or being accused of plagiarism.

 

I am currently working with an editor who has helped publish several books.

According to him:
it is okay to have a few excerpts of the book online.
If the excerpts / story is intriguing to the reader, that gives the book more exposure. And that is exactly what the publishers want. They are in the business of selling books. Anything that sells more books is welcome.

It made a lot of sense to me when he told me this. Has anyone seen any problems with posting a few excerpts of the book on the internet?

 

I honestly didn`t know this, I was afraid to post my current writing because of plagiarism but didn`t think about the publishing angle. I can see the sense in posting excerpts as a teaser, like a film trailer, but I guess you have to be careful even with that, as has been talked about in earlier posts.

 

When I post any portion of a larger work, the excerpt is a beta. It's not the actual excerpt as it really reads. You should think of the Workshop as a place to improve your skill, not your paragraph.

 

Ah, got it, that way you can honestly say to any potential publisher that the excerpts weren`t representative of the finished piece . You were honing your skills not posting your work.

 

Spot on. Often they are old versions of scenes that have been reworked, characters that have taken a complete costume and script change, parts that were trimmed away from that which was kept, etc. The real benefit of participating in a workshop is the act of critiquing, of considering the work of someone else, with a serious eye, and then applying what you learn from that to your own work. Getting advice helps, but only so much. To put it a different way, I can tell you (give you advice) the functions of all the different components within and near the driver's seat of a car. I can tell you, in painstaking detail, what it's all for and what each thing does. You can listen to every word, intently, but I still have not taught you how to drive that car. You need to get in, sit down, and do that on your own. You have to deploy the information I've given you. You have to learn to choreograph your movements, your arms, your legs, and your attention to the point where changing gears happens naturally and without thinking now I press the clutch, move the stick-shift, ease up on the clutch, give it gas so it doesn't stall... Only you can do that. No one can do that for you.

 

Right, interesting reading that from another perspective. I`ve often talked about very point with my work colleagues, how hard it is to tell someone, they have to actually do it, and no matter how many times they see you, watch you, they can`t feel what you are feeling, experience it without doing it. I`ve also never heard anyone describe the act of critiqueing in a way that helps me as much as the other writer.
What you are saying is, it`s a mirror. you look at their work and point out problems and make suggestions, but the mirror points out your own.

 

Yes. I give a critique, I wax rhapsodic about a particular thing, I open my own WIP later and find the very things of which I waxed in need of attention in my own writing. The other person's work is the strop, I am the blade, and my work is need of a shave.

 

So what you're saying is that so long as you only posted a few excerpts (ie, not whole chapters) and they are not your final piece, you should be fine?

 

If you have a particular publisher or group of publishers in mind, check their guidelines and see if they say anything about it.

 

Hmmm, I do have a little stubble here and there it`s true
I haven`t been here long enough to be the workshop but when I do I`ll bear it in mind.
Another reason for clarifying all this is that sometimes you have parts of your novel that you may be stuck on and have need of help, if it`s possible to do that (a small part maybe) and not ruin your chances of publication then it may help the process.
I suppose another way of doing it would be to write that part using a different setting and characters, that way you could get around that particular point.
Of course you also may want someone to read something that you`ve been working on for an age and need a second opinion, whether you`ve cracked it or not. I guess the above workaround works for that as well.

 

Quick question:

I posted a (complete) short story I submitted for my creative writing class on here for critique. This was written about...two, three years ago? Anyway, I decided to make that short story into a novel with the same characters, but with a different, better plot and stronger description.

Is there any chance I can still get that work published? Or not at all since a completed short story version (beta) already exists on here?

 

I doubt the post here would matter in the least under those circumstances for most publishers. I'd be surprised of any of them cared if they otherwise wanted the novel.

 

^ That's my fear as well. I posted my short story on August of last year. Though @Steerpike is correct that publishers likely wouldn't care, it still worries me that I may have killed my chances as I posted excerpts and had character discussions on the three story ideas I was the most passionately excited about.

Guess it just depends on the publisher, how much would one care over the other that an earlier version of the story exists online. After all, didn't one of the posters here say that as long as you made it clear that yes, an earlier version exists online but it's not the version you're handing in, you should be good? In any case, a good way to see this is that a story is a story. Having a completed manuscript sans publication is infinitely better than no manuscript at all.

 

Every short story I've had accepted by literary magazines so far has been posted here in some form. I know at least one of them checks for online versions with a plagiarism checker, but perhaps they consider this as a workshop rather than published format. The editor of one mag I love has said anything like this meant for critique/feedback is fine, where personal blogs are not unless they are somehow locked to the general public. I don't know about novels, but I'd imagine excerpts are probably fine, especially if they differ from the final version.

 

I don't know about the short story market, but for novels, I've never heard of there being a problem with having a chapter or an excerpt posted online for critique.

 

Well I hope I did right but its too late to change it. We have been writing our blog for over 10 years. Among the post I have told about half a dozen or so of my short stories over the years, as illustrated blog posts. I hope one day to include them along with another 20 or so not published in a collection. After perusing this thread I aint so sure that was a good idea, or even legal but its from encouragement from those stories that I have put on our blog that give me the faith to try the collection.

 

Well jeez, this makes me think that it doesn't matter then. Maybe I should just start posting away here again...

 

I really appreciate this thread. I had no idea that putting your work online compromises it.

 

If I may ask, would it be ok to post an excerpt (say 500 words) from something you are working on but which is nowhere near submission standard such that it will likely change?

 

This is why I do not like or participate in online reviews.

I like to find partners and go one-for-one via private email.

If it is online, technically anyone can see it.

Although I never plan on making money from writting, no reason to possibly spoil the chance.

 

Huh. I did not know any of this, so I have a question: I posted part of the first draft of my first chapter on a different website for critique. Since then the chapter has been rewritten (I'm on, like, my fourth draft by now) and the characters have been expanded upon, and the name of the novel has been changed. Is that first draft going to have any affect on my chances of being published?

 

So, posting my short scary stories on the Writer's Workshop is a bad idea?