Electronics Rights

[I, Brian]

I had someone raise a concern of posting material on the public critiques section of chronicles, and the impact it may have on their publishing chances with regards to electronic rights.

So far as I understand it, electronic rights are something of a grey area, but that to keep safe, a writer can post up to 3 chapters online, or 12 lines of a short story, before electronics rights even becomes an issue.

However, I thought I'd better check on this and see what your input on the matter is, John.

At what point does posting material online have a negative impact on the chances of being published?

[mistri]

I don't know the answer (so sorry for butting in) but - if it isn't already - I would suggest that the critique section becomes visible to members only.

[I, Brian]

I just mentioned to another member that I like the idea of keeping the critiques section open to public view, because I know some members joined up precisely because they saw that the sort of feedback given in some threads was the sort they were looking for themselves.

However, I am considering a few future changes that may include some private member boards - nothing decided as yet.

[mistri]

Hmm, that's an interesting point, I'm not sure how you could get around it, as I can see why it would attract new people.

Forward Motion has crit sections visible to members only, and within them, crit circle folders which are only visible to specific small groups of people.

Absolute Write requires a password to enter the crit section - I'm not sure if it is members only, though. Perhaps having a password ensures spiders/bots can't cache or pick up the pages - you could stick a password (as AW does) in the forum description so that newcomers and members alike could see it.

I'll shut up now

[I, Brian]

Feedback is always welcome - I'm just playing with a few possibilities first.

I also want to ensure we stand in good stead on electronic rights, too.

[LauraJUnderwood]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Feedback is always welcome - I'm just playing with a few possibilities first.

I also want to ensure we stand in good stead on electronic rights, too.

This discussion came up in the SFWA private lounge a while back, and the consensus was most publishers consider putting your work on a public website to be publication.

However, there were some who said they did not agree when the forum was for the purpose of critiquing.

A very grey area indeed.

Laura J. Underwood
Author of DRAGON'S TONGUE

[the_faery_queen]

it is only considered published if it is open to the public, from what i can tell. if it is a critique site that is member protected, then most don't mind. some might, but i post mine on lj and fantasy writers and in all cases was protected from public view and no one minded that. i think that most magazines want you to polish the story up as best you can, some even recomend that you DO post it on critique places to get that help. so i think as longf as it is password protected and not publically available, it should be ok. i thik if they haev a problem with it, they will specify that precisely, because in this day and age, many people post stuff online in critique places to get help and advice.

that's just me thoughts and experiences. some people may have differing ones, of course :_