To Post, Or Not To Post: That is the Question

Last time I dithered about whether or not I should post parts of my story, Gods Among Men, on a blog.  Either this one or another one devoted solely to my story.  I concluded by asking for other people’s opinions. 

Since no one was forthcoming with their opinions, I cornered various people, shot them with tranquilizer darts, and then water-boarded them until they were willing to say anything to make me stop.  Naturally, I took what they said as honest advice freely given.

I was able to determine that either A) no one cares if I post parts of my story on this blog or on another one, or B) people are deathly afraid of me and will say whatever they think I want to hear.  In either case, no one specifically objected to me posting parts of my story on this blog, but neither did they encourage me to do so.

One person did, however, raise a substantive point about whether it was a good idea for me to be posting my story online at all.  There are two good reason I can think of to be wary of doing so: 1) running afoul of copyright laws, and 2) ticking off potential publishers.

The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All The Lawyers

Copyright laws protect the creator/owner of content, such as the text of a book.  If someone tries to steal, copy, plagiarize, or otherwise appropriate material that is not theirs, the owner of the copyright can sue the dirty rotten thief with fair odds of winning the case.

So what would it take to ensure my story is covered by copyright laws?  It would appear that I need do nothing at all.  Apparently, creating an original work is, by itself, sufficient to have it covered by national and international copyright laws.  You don’t even have to put up a notice saying the work is copyrighted.  All you need is reasonable evidence that you are the creator of the work.

Enforcing the copyright, however, is another matter.  Enforcement means being paranoid, sending letters to those who violated the copyright, and paying lawyers when your copyright is infringed. 

All this assumes someone would be interested enough in my story to bother stealing it.  At this stage, I think that is the least of my worries.

Don’t Anger Those Who Buy Ink By The Barrel

Ticking-Off off traditional publishers is a different matter.  It is entirely possible that posting a substantial amount of my story in a blog would make traditional publishers extremely reluctant to work with me.

How likely is it that would happen?  How the heck should I know?  I’m an amateur writer, I don’t really know how professional publishing works. 

Perhaps posting the bulk of Gods Among Men online wouldn’t be a big deal to some publishers.  Or if I actually gained a sizeable following it might be considered proof that there is a market for my story, which would increase my odds of being published 

But it is entirely possible that it would convince most publishers that I am not worth spending time and money on.  That I am an amateur writer with no serious intention of transitioning into a professional author.

I feel it is important here to emphasize the difference between writer and author, a distinction I have written about before. 

In brief a writer has a need to put a story down in words, but may not desire to share that work with anyone else.  For a writer it may be sufficient to express their imagination just for their own enjoyment. 

But an author craves an audience.  Is in not sufficient for an author to tell their story to themselves; they desire, even need, others to experience the story with them.

Neither author nor writer is better than the other.  But it is important to decide which you wish to be.  This decision establishes your ultimate goal, determines the choices you must make to achieve that goal, and establishes the compromises you must be willing to consider.

So Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want

I want to be an author.  It is not sufficient for me to write my story and be the only one who reads it.  I do not crave adulation, but I do feel the need to share with others the world I see so clearly in my imagination.

That said, I have talked with professional writers and editors on occasion.  Based on the little I have learned from those conversations, I already know my odds of being published are not good.   

Publishers rarely accept new novels that are over 80,000 words long, or roughly 300 pages.

In addition, publishers like new novels to be self-contained.  That is, they want the novel to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end.  It’s fine, even desirable, to leave room for later novels to pick up where the first leaves off.  That’s how series of novels starring recurring characters come about.  But the publisher wants proof that there is an audience for the first novel before they risk investing in later novels by the same author or in the same series.

Care to Play A Game of Chance

I don’t blame publishers for adopting that attitude.  New authors are unproven quantities, as are new novels.  The cost of printing and promoting new books is extremely expensive.  Taking on an untried author who proposes writing a lengthy series of  long books is taking a riverboat gamble with a lot of money on the table.

And that is what I would be presenting to to them. 

Currently the first book in Gods Among Men is 231,000 words long, more than 700 pages.   As I edit the various chapters the length will shrink, but I cannot imagine this first novel ever being close to their desired 80,000 word limit.   I expect the later novels will be of similar length.  Gods Among Men will take seven books to tell in its entirety, which means I must write approximately 5000 pages, or about 1.5 million words.

Moreover, the first book in the series, At the Lady’s Behest comes…, ends not on one cliffhanger, but on several.  Potential publishers would likely want me to radically change how it ends, and that is not possible without destroying the overall arc of the story I want to tell.

This is not to say it is impossible for me to have Gods Among Men published, merely that the odds are seriously stacked against me. 

I would have better odds of success if I were to write several self-contained novels first, establish myself as a professional writer, then try to have my epic published.  

Of course that plan requires years of effort, with no guarantee of success.  There is no reason to believe that I would be published if I wrote self-contained stories. Nor is there reason to expect those other works would sell well enough to establish me as a reliable writer in the eyes of publishers.  In the end, such efforts might well be wasted time.  Time that I could have spent crafting the story I actually care about.

Put Your Money Down and Roll the Dice

Which brings me back to the idea of posting my story online.  It is another riverboat gamble, but this time the risks are on me. 

Do I post Gods Among Men online so that a small number of people might read it?  Doing so risks alienating publishers, possibly restricting me to only those people who know of my work by word of mouth.

Or do I avoid publishing online and try to beat the odds?  Dare I hope that Gods Among Men is picked up by a publisher that would provide me with a much wider audience?  Doing so carries the distinct possibility that no one would ever read my story.

To Post, Or Not To Post: That is the Question

And since the decision does not need to made immediately, the safest course of action is to make no decision.  Which brings to mind a quote from Hamlet, part of the famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy in Act three, scene one.   Hamlet refers to what lies beyond death as “the undiscovered country”, but you can just as well take his words to be about the future.

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Or in simpler words, the fear of unknown future consequences can stifle the ability to make a decision in the here and now.  Indecision leads to delay and dithering, until the moment is lost and the consequences of inaction are upon us.

I am prone to introspection, to analyzing a situation over and over.  But I am also capable of quick, even radical decisions made with little evidence or thought of consequence.  Decisions not made based on logic or reason, but made based on spur of the moment gut instinct.  I am (metaphorically) capable of leaping off a cliff without knowing what lies below, trusting on good luck to provide a safe landing.

For the moment I shall wait, postpone making a final decision, but I will not wait long.  I will set my course of action soon.  Perhaps not this week or the next, but likely by the end of the years.  I will, of course keep those interested in the outcome informed. 

If anyone has advice or insight they care to share on this matter, please feel free to voice your opinion.  I am genuinely interested in hearing what others think about what I should do, especially the reasons you may have for or against me posting my story online.

Until next time, take care and have fun.