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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Posting parts of my book online. | Forum Quick Jump
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Bill Ward
Biblioholic
      
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1669
| Posted 12/23/2006 5:34 PM (GMT -4) |   | I'm no expert here but I think the bottom line is if your book is good enough a publisher will make an exception...one recent success story by a writer named Scott Lynch had him actually land a big book deal on his first novel when an editor had a look at his online work. All his excerpts were of course removed pretty quickly. Also, for novels I don't think pubs are too concerned with previously published stuff, they just don't want free access to somethgin competeing with their possible release.
But having something online does constitute having it 'published' in a sense, and your friend is right that it can be a turn off -- but this is especially the case with short stories, or complete works presented in there entirety. My own guess would be as long as you aren't offering an entire novel for free online you should avoid the 'previously published' thing.
There are probably some additional technical dodges aroudn it as well, such as asking people that read your work to join a membership-only forum or registry, then your work is considered more or less privately distributed, or shared 'among friends' and not in the public eye.
I'm sure we'll get an expert in here to clear up my half-understanding of the matter. | | Back to Top | | |
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Fever
Stablehand
Date Joined Dec 2006
Total Posts : 5
| Posted 12/23/2006 7:40 PM (GMT -4) | | | Thanks for the response mate. So even if I post 10% of the novel online, I am basically shooting myself in the foot? If so, then I'd rather not risk it. | | Back to Top | | |
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Fever
Stablehand
Date Joined Dec 2006
Total Posts : 5
| Posted 12/23/2006 9:20 PM (GMT -4) | | | Thanks for info Daniel. I've heard it is very hard for an author that has no previous publishing experience to be noticed and picked up by a publisher. Its kinda like a toss of the dice. Since I"m an artist and musician myself, I wanted to create some pictures and music to accompany my story, and use a website to "get it out there" before the book is published. After all, I could be wrong, but even if the book gets published and hits shelves, what will make people pick it up if no one knows about it? | | Back to Top | | |
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carnifexpress
Sage
Date Joined Feb 2005
Total Posts : 1314
| Posted 12/24/2006 10:18 AM (GMT -4) | | Daniel is right... and by posting parts of it yourself and creating buzz for it, you'll then have a few readfers now interested in a book that isn't available for sale. Even if a publisher sees your work online and loves what you've posted so far, there is still plenty of lapse time between a publisher seeing the complete manuscript and it being actually printed (sometimes a year or more) so all that pre-press buzz you created by going to all the trouble of posting chapters, artwork (which the publisher will handle 99% of the time) and hype won't mean a thing.
I don't know you personally and this isn't an attack on you, but as a small-press publisher everything I've ever had submitted to me so far in the two years Carnifex Press has been around that had the same idea from the author (free chapters setup on a cool-looking website, with cover artwork done, illustrations, character sketches, etc.) has been subpar, and most liley rejected by several publishers already... but instead of just self-publishing the book, the author now thinks this is the way to sell it to the world. It doesn't work. Some publishers might think you've already been rejected so many times already and go into reading it in a negative.
Just my thoughts.
Armand Rosamilia
Visit Carnifex Press for more information!
Freehold short stories:
"Dew Scented" Stalking Shadows anthology
The Freehold site is now up!
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 12/24/2006 4:38 PM (GMT -4) | | After all, I could be wrong, but even if the book gets published and hits shelves, what will make people pick it up if no one knows about it?
***
Timing means a lot here. Most books that are lucky enough to wind up on bookstore shelves are only there for mere weeks, so targeting exposure for the book and timing it is key. By securing an authentic big or small press publisher you avail yourself of their distibutors, connections to retailers, and publicity apparatus. Also, their knowledge of how to make sales in the book industry happen which isn't as easy as many people think it is.
"Hanging a shingle" before you have a good source of distribution and additional publicity won't get you very far, I don't think. I could bore you to tears with what it takes to make a *single* sale of any title, but I won't. Just consider this, however: most people have very "set" buying patterns and that is why big companies spend so much money trying to beg, bowrrow, buy, or steal private information for all of our shopping habits.
So until you have both good publicity (and posting free chapters of an unpublished novel is usually *not* good publicity) plus a mechanism to get your product to the people who buy fiction in the place where they feel comfortable buying, you are facing overwhelmingly bad odds.
Getting into the bookstores and on Amazon alone won't sell your book, either. No-one impulse buys a book they've never heard of -- not at list price :wink: So, the idea of having publicity for an unpublished novel just doesn't make any sense. You have to have publicity and then have the book be "instantly" available to readers via trusted sellers.
There is a rule of "seven" that is well-known in publishing and in marketing and publicity circles: this means it takes seven instances of exposure before you can get a customer to purchase your product. That means the customer must have seen word of your product seven times before they will begin to have interest in purchasing it, and even then: it must be readily available from a *trusted* seller, as I mentioned.
Self-published authors routinely have a very low margin of book-sales and a lot of this is due, not to a lack of quality, but to the lack of the product being available through what consumers feel is a reliable source.
When was the last time you bought a new, unknown product directly from its manufacturer? I'm guessing never, but even if I am wrong, that is the exception to the rule.
And exceptions are always possible, so keep that in mind as you consider my upstream comments and Armand's. We're not saying your concept isn't possibly advantageous, we are saying the odds and experience speak more to the contrary and that putting your unpublished ms. online could prove detrimental to securing a publisher later.
Daniel
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Nicholas
Faculty X Mage
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 1025
| Posted 12/30/2006 9:32 PM (GMT -4) | | Daniel and Armand,
I just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the advice you shared with Fever--I learned a thing or two from your thoughtful insight myself!
Having read hundreds of magazine submission guidelines (literally  ), I knew that most editors consider a short story that has been posted somewhere online--even one that has been workshopped in a public forum--as previously published, so I already assumed the same would hold true for a novel. I can't really add anything to what Daniel has said already, except to share a personal anecdote. A few years back a couple writer-friends of mine and I began writing a shared-world project, and early on we toyed with the idea of posting some of the stories online. I am sure glad we decided against it, because the now-finished project is now under serious consideration by a publisher!
On the other hand, I am currently posting installments of a serial novel as I write them on my blog. But I have no intention of trying to market that to a publisher--it is basically just a writing exercise done for the pleasure of it. It's full of autobiographical in-jokes that only friends and a few fellow-writers would get anyway. In the (highly unlikely) event that it developed enough of a following to garner the attention of a small-press publisher, that would be fine with me, but it's not what I'm expecting nor attempting to do. The only scenario I can think of where it could become something more than it is (a fun writing exercise shared with a small, appreciative audience) is this: if I achieved moderate success with another novel, enough so for my publisher to think, "Hey, he's got this online project that he's been writing; we could polish it up and publish it as his 'next' novel." Again, highly unlikely...But the odds ARE better than winning the lottery. 
www.myspace.com/Ropespor
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Scott M. Sandridge
Former King of Shameless Plugs
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 693
| Posted 1/5/2007 5:46 PM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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carnifexpress
Sage
Date Joined Feb 2005
Total Posts : 1314
| Posted 1/5/2007 9:45 PM (GMT -4) | | Scott,
Thanks for the cool shout-out above... I usually just follow Daniel's lead and try to sound semi-intelligent.
Armand Rosamilia
Visit Carnifex Press for more information!
Freehold short stories:
"Dew Scented" Stalking Shadows anthology
The Freehold site is now up!
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Mr. Bewildered
Stablehand
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 3/21/2007 3:14 AM (GMT -4) | | Taking the contrarian view... Youse guys familiar with John Scalzi's "Old Man's War"? John serialized his novel section by section on his blog over a long period. (Two years, I think...) anyway, I believe it was Patrick Nielsen Hayden who read what Scalzi published and grabbed it for TOR, where it, GHOST BRIGADES, and whatever his latest is have been doing really well!
Now that having been said, Scalzi is no neophyte writer. He is a professional and has been published all over the place, but as a magazine non-fiction author.
--Jerry | | Back to Top | | |
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Vanessa
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 72
| Posted 4/27/2007 8:45 PM (GMT -4) | | Hey Fever,
What Daniel says is true, yes. I think that the basis of this idea is probably (I'm guessing here) that in the publisher's opinion, if readers can read your work for free online, then why would they spend money to have a hard copy?
Then again, you certainly don't want to just hand your work out and risk theft... I suggest a site such as www.critters.org - posting your work to this site will not render it "previously published" as the site is password protected.
Alternatively, find someone you trust to read over your chapters and give you critique... More than one person is usually the best idea. If you haven't found anyone, then I'd be happy to read and critique for you. Of course, you don't know me, so whether to trust me or not would be your call 
Daniel said...If you post your novel online most publishers will consider the novel previously published. Bill's right about online publication working well for some and dooming others. My personal advice is: exhaust traditional avenues of submission and publication (including small press print and electronic publishers) before you opt to self-publish in any form. Good luck with your novel!
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adamastor_Writers_Guild/
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Vanessa
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 72
| Posted 4/27/2007 8:52 PM (GMT -4) | | |
Fever... One of my closest friends is an editor, and let me share a little secret with you: If your writing is up to their standards, and your content is interesting, then you stand a chance whether or not you've been previously published. Of course, it's also important to make sure that you submit your work to the correct publisher (in other words, there's no point in submitting a horror manuscript to a publication that only publishes romance) - then again, I'm sure that you already know that.
Also, have you written your synopsis yet? Most publishers won't read a full novel... You will need to write a synopsis, giving your entire plot away (they need to know if the storyline is good from beginning to end, before they waste time reading something that they feel doesn't have a good ending). Then you'd send your synopsis and the first three chapters to a publisher. If they like it, they'll request the rest. Of course, this is a general rule and some publishers may work differently, so it's best to check directly with the publisher you want to submit your novel to, before just sending them something.
My advice to you is this: Find somewhere "safe" (in other words, somewhere that your work would not be considered previously published, and where your work is not available for anyone browsing the internet to read) and have strangers critique your work - trust me, strangers are not afraid of hurting your feelings and can give you some darn good ideas on how to improve your story... Once you've made any edits on comments that you agree with, THEN submit it to a publisher... At least you will know that your writing quality is good...
Anyhoooo that's just my two cents and I'm high on coffee right now :P
Fever said...
Thanks for info Daniel. I've heard it is very hard for an author that has no previous publishing experience to be noticed and picked up by a publisher. Its kinda like a toss of the dice. Since I"m an artist and musician myself, I wanted to create some pictures and music to accompany my story, and use a website to "get it out there" before the book is published. After all, I could be wrong, but even if the book gets published and hits shelves, what will make people pick it up if no one knows about it?
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adamastor_Writers_Guild/
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