Published by Deborah on 09 Nov 2005 at 04:13 pm
The Dark Side of ePublishing
Theft is the Number One reason why writers haven’t jumped on the ebook publishing bandwagon. Below is an example of blatant plagiarism/book theft, along with some solutions as to how Joe and his friends are tracking down the original thief.
The Rip-off of Joe Sugarman’s Triggers
Benjamin Solah on 09 Nov 2005 at 7:29 pm #
On my website, there are only some short, short stories, some poems, a few articles and a monologue. There are not precious pieces of work, many of the short stories are unedited, and if you them, they arn’t that good. If these were stolen, I wouldn’t care too much, that is why I did it.
But I would never think of putting a novel or special work online. It is not fair that people can pour their heart and soul into a piece of work, only for it to be downloaded and published somewhere else, under someone else’s name.
Deborah on 09 Nov 2005 at 8:25 pm #
I agree with you, there, Ben. The only things I’ve published online were articles that I hoped would help promote The Writers Buzz and last year’s NaNo project.
I wanted to see how well I could write a book, using a blog. Plus, I wanted to see how well my story would be received by readers. There was some debate about whether or not I should do that (from my family), but the good thing about blogs is that you automatically copyright your work via the dates and times of each post.
However, I’ll never post my ghost story in its entirety online, but I’ll share snippets of it to entice my readers. I’ve put way too many years into this to have it stolen (assuming that it’s good enough).
Pat Kirby on 10 Nov 2005 at 8:40 am #
Actually, I don’t post fiction online because I don’t want to blow my First Publication rights. Some markets will treat Internet publication as first publication and the work becomes a reprint. (This is particularly true of online [paying] markets.) Which means, a lower pay rate or possibly no acceptance at all. I wouldn’t post something to the Internet unless I’ve exhausted all possible sales markets.
At which point, it sucks and I’d be amazed if anyone could actually make money off the darned thing.
Deborah on 10 Nov 2005 at 12:30 pm #
That’s another thing to consider. Good point. It all depends upon what your goals as a writer are when it comes to making this decision.