What to Know Before Publishing Fiction and Poetry Online

If you've written some poetry or a few short stories, this is a question you may have asked yourself: Is it safe to post your work on the internet for everyone to see?

Let's look at the facts-of writing, of publishing, and of new writers-and then let's look at why those facts weigh so heavily on your decision.

Some bad news...

Once you post something you've written on a blog, on a message board, or on a web site, it instantly becomes accessible to everyone online, and no matter who owns the copyright your work is at risk of being taken by a plagiarist.

Unless you're rich, there isn't much you can do about it. You can call the person out, defame them, and tell everyone you see that so and so stole your work and published it as his own, but without money you can't sue for the rights to any earnings he made from the work-if the plagiarist earned anything to begin with.

Once you publish something online, in any form for the general public to see, your work instantly loses its first time rights, seriously hurting its earning power if you ever sell the work to a magazine, anthology, or publishing house. The one exception is for big time authors who can sell their grocery lists on a bad day.

Some good news...

As soon as you put pen to paper, draw a word, and make it into a sentence, you have created a work and by United States and International copyright laws, it is copyrighted the moment it is created. You, the writer-creator-of the work have to do nothing but think it, write it, and the copyright is already in affect. Of course, this is a weaker copyright than getting the work notarized by the copyright office, but it's copyrighted none-the-less. You can do things like mail the manuscript to yourself (to prove the date), but it's not necessary for it to still be copyrighted.

If you put your own work on the internet you continue to own the work, and legally, no other human being can take your work and use it in any way without your permission.

But not all human beings follow the law of the land, and many slimy ones have no respect for creative minds. Someone will, sooner or later, use your work and it doesn't make much difference whether you know it happens or not. Why is this good? The good news is that it doesn't make much of a difference, not because you can't do anything about it, but because you don't really have to.

Reason one: If you're a new writer, you are an inexperienced writer. The work you are posting on the internet is, relatively speaking, not very good. You may be good, but the work isn't-not by your talent level. The longer you write, the better your writing will become, and what you are writing today will pale in comparison to anything you happen to write ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now. What I'm trying to say is that anyone stealing your work, no matter how great they think it is, won't be able to do much with it because they're basically stealing crap.

Reason two: If they did steal it, what would they do with it? Stealing work is one thing, posting it on a personal blog or website is one thing, but making money from a stolen work is wholly another-something not easily done. Anyone who steals your work, 999 out of 1,000 times, won't be able to make money off of it, and if they do, and you can prove to the publisher of that work, or a court, that it's yours, well, the little thief is gonna be in some hot water, ain't he?

Reason three; the reason we seek to show the world our work on the internet in the first place: We writers do it to learn. You can't get critiques and opinions on how to write better if every piece of writing is locked away from the world. The risk you take from the plagiarists in the world is little to nothing compared to the reward you get from having another more talented writer critique your work, pointing out what you've done well, and what you can do better.

Once you become a professional writer yourself, you'll stop posting your work for free in the public domain because you'll be submitting it for publication and making money. But your work is still at risk of being stolen, the difference now being that you have the financial backing of a publisher if you wish to sue-for some publishers, you won't have the choice. But for now, consider the work monetarily worthless, and go after the intangible benefit of having your work critiqued and learning from your mistakes through the eyes of better writers. The risk, versus the reward, isn't much. A greater risk would be to not grow as a writer; living scared of being robbed of work that won't make you any money in the first place.

Go ahead and post, understanding the risk and the reward, and knowing the difference between your ego and genuine threats to your career. As writers grow and gain experience, they realize not everything they write is gold. Their work is put into perspective by the lenses of time, and they understand that the little thieves of the world can go ahead and have the lesser writings, that the gold ores they think they've stolen are in fact spray painted gravel.