: Submitting things I post on my blog for publication I have a Wordpress where I post short stories I write. It's not popular, mostly just family and a few random people follow it. Occasionally,

@Harper186

Posted in: #Blog #Publishing

I have a Wordpress where I post short stories I write. It's not popular, mostly just family and a few random people follow it. Occasionally, I want decide I want to further work on something I posted and try to get it published, and will remove the post with that story. Is it a problem that I ever had it posted? I'm not sure if publishers could see that it was posted at one time, and might not like that. Or, would I be okay to keep it up on my blog when submitting it, then just taking it down if it were to get accepted for publication? Are there general rules for this type of thing?

Does it change if I want to post snippets from a novel I'm writing, or should I just avoid posting anything at all from that since I plan to pursue publication once I'm finished with it?

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@Fox6458700

@Fox6458700

Yes, there are rules for this type of thing. They come down to what your contract says.


When you have a work published, you'll have a contract. Check out my response at the question mentioned above for specifics on what type of rights the publisher may want. Many will require that the piece has never been published before, including online, and including on a personal blog.
Check the submission policies before you submit in order to be extra sure.
Let the editors know if it's been published before, even just on a personal blog.
If you pull it down, Google and other search engines have likely already indexed the piece, which means if someone searches for part of the text, she may find it. Don't try to pull it down and pretend it was never published. Things on the internet are forever.
If your personal blog is family-only, consider having it password-protected instead of public. That way, you can likely get around the requirement that it not be published before; you can argue that it was just stored and submitted for peer review or something if anyone finds it. It's not available for public consumption, so I think it would be safe to say it's not published.
If you're submitting to something that doesn't pay, it will likely be less strict on publishing with multiple outlets.

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