Legal question re posting novel excerpts

[Genly]

Apologies to the staff if this question has already been answered 100 times, but if I were to post a short (maybe 2,000 words) excerpt of my completed 80,000 word novel in the Portfolio section and invite comments, would this make a publisher then refuse to publish the entire novel, on the grounds that part of it had already been "published" online?

 

[pmmg]

No. You may post our story on a review site and get feedback before publication. So long as the story is not visible to the general public, it would not be considered published.

Here at MS, some forums are open to the public and some are not. If you put your story snippet into a portfolio, it will not be visible to the public, and not considered 'published'. However, people cannot comment on portfolios.

If you post the snippet in writers work, or critique requests, that is also not visible to the public and not a strike a publisher would care about.

However, publishers are in this new world with the rest of us. Nothing would ever stop you from self publishing, and publishers are becoming less relevant everyday.

 

[Devor]

It's my understanding that Portfolios can be visible to non-members, so please double check the settings before you post anything. And you'll get more replies posting it in Critique Requests.

As pmmg noted, posting to a members-only site such as Mythic Scribes is not generally considered publishing. But every publisher has their own guidelines, and every person has their own interpretation of whatever might be left vague in those guidelines.

Still, 2,000 out of 80,000 is a pretty short excerpt and shouldn't be an issue with anyone, even if it was public.

 

[Genly]

Thanks!

 

[The Dark One]

If a publisher thought your work was good enough to invest in, they wouldn't care in the least if some of it had been published - whether on the net or anywhere else.

Many famous books started life as an extract published in a magazine or anthology etc. Huge chunks of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh had been published elsewhere as short stories and it became one of the biggest sellers ever.

 

[Prince of Spires]

If a publisher thought your work was good enough to invest in, they wouldn't care in the least if some of it had been published - whether on the net or anywhere else.

Well, yes and no.

If something turns out to be wildly popular then publishers won't care one bit. 50 shades of Grey and The Martian being 2 examples of novels that started out as self-published stories.

However, the reason we know about these and hold them up as examples is because they are the exceptions. For most publishers the first publication rights are important. Yes they'll make exceptions if they think they can quickly make a boatload of easy money. But in general they will pick something which hasn't been published before over something that has.

That doesn't really apply to snippets. Having a first chapter up somewhere is just publicity. But having a majority of a novel out there will make a publisher hesitant.

 

[The Dark One]

Well, yes and no.

If something turns out to be wildly popular then publishers won't care one bit. 50 shades of Grey and The Martian being 2 examples of novels that started out as self-published stories.

However, the reason we know about these and hold them up as examples is because they are the exceptions. For most publishers the first publication rights are important. Yes they'll make exceptions if they think they can quickly make a boatload of easy money. But in general they will pick something which hasn't been published before over something that has.

That doesn't really apply to snippets. Having a first chapter up somewhere is just publicity. But having a majority of a novel out there will make a publisher hesitant.

As a lawyer who has worked in publishing, I can assure you that it always comes down to quality. If something is not picked up due to "a snippet having already been published" that's just a polite way of saying it didn't get through the publishing committee. If it's good enough they'll always find a way.

I qualify my statement with the proviso that I'm an Australian lawyer and maybe things are different elsewhere.