I’m going to try to make this short and sweet.
There are all kinds of advice floating around about whether or not one should or shouldn’t blog out portions of one’s work into the Internet…how it might or might not damage the success of said work, should the blogger want to publish it, en masse.
Dare I say it?
Bullshit.
To that I add: pure bullshit.
A member of the writing I belong to expressed concern about that, because that was what this member was doing…then had stopped…but was, again, considering doing. He did it because of several reasons, some of which were that he enjoyed doing it. It got him writing. He’d found an audience.
I’d say the following be my opinion, but I really don’t think it’s an isolated “opinion” anymore. Heck an opinion at all; it has become fact: As long as what you do doesn’t hurt anyone, do what you love. Do what you enjoy. There are always people out there who love serials…and those who would love to read those serials again…or in one complete form. Those who have never seen your work, so one platform or the other serves them.
Do you really think a traditional publisher is going to care whether or not you blogged about your work–if they really felt they could make millions of you?
Hell no.
Any free promotion they can get to help sell their version of your work, all the better.
Look, no trad publisher is gonna take you if they don’t feel they can make a buck off of you, period. Your blogging of your book is an antiquated issue, based upon antiquated reasoning. Antiquated reasoning is what’s damaged (and continues to damage) traditional publishing. Reasoning can be made for or against anything, but it’s all about packaging. Look at all the crap out there that’s been out there for ever, suddenly repackaged and re-promoted. Instead of bitching and moaning about what not to do, about how terrible the world is and how things “could never work,” why not spin that frown upside down, my perfectly bound friends? Anything can be sold. Just put out a little effort, for crying out loud.
And you can always, always, Indie publish (don’t even get me going about how Indie publishing merely promulgates more shitty work into the world).
Do what gives you joy.
It’s your life.
Live it as you want. If your work is good or meant to succeed–in however way you define it—it will.
Just ignore all the white noise out there, and do what makes you happy. Life is short. Play hard.
To “he” out there, you go, dude! Have fun and keep your audience wanting more!
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Interesting. I agree that blogging parts of your novel won’t push publishers away. Being discovered and blogging are important elements that work together in the tech age. On the other hand, posting your ideas, I believe, isn’t a good idea because there are people that might use them for their own. There are lots of stories with the same theme. I use to blog stories online. I enjoyed it until I realized, I could very well be writing a novel for somebody else.
Sure, others may try to use your ideas, but if you blogged them you have time and date stamps. So, if you really did write them first…you have an undeniable record of your first use.
I think blogging a novel is fine…esp since so many are now self publishing and hungry followers may well like to read the entire story, own it, savor it when it isn’t just in installments.
And you know, if people are really worried about story stealing…COPYRIGHT your work (http://copyright.gov/). Put it into short story or book form, heck even e-book form, and send it off to the copyright office. $35. Then blog it away. No one sez you have to put your work out into the world in full format, maybe even a PDF would suffice. Maybe in the book form you say these are serializations (put in chapter titles?), but keep them all in one book. I’m no lawyer, but copyright it, then you get legal legs to stand on. Then you can feel safer (I’d wager) by blogging bits of it away, when the entire thing is already copyrighted….