Help me understand legal stuff: should I trust wordpress

Creative Commons is a licensing system that backs common language with legalese. There are different levels of creative commons, depending on what the original artist determines they want to protect and what they want to allow anybody to be able to use.

There's a lot of questions here, though. There's actually two things Wordpress can mean. There's Wordpress.org, which publishes and develops the Wordpress framework, and then there's Wordpress.com, which is a hosting service utilizing that framework. Keep in mind that if you're concerned by the latter, they may need implicit licensing from you in order to legally host what you've written to begin with. In other words, when it comes to your blog, you're the writer, but they are in effect the publisher. However, in the case of the former, you can frequently decide to write your own templates and plugins which require you to agree to their TOS, which is another thing you might be looking at.

In the end, if you're planning on blogging things you eventually intend to publish, you need to be aware that by publishing it on a blog, you've already used your First World rights and thus any further publication will be, in effect, a reprint. So, if you publish a short story on your blog, and then submit that short story to another market for publication, you cannot in good faith agree to First world rights and must accept reprint rates, if they're offered at all.

Counterpoint to the above: at least three of the blogs I follow (Whatever, Terribleminds, XKCD) have published collections of things that have appeared in their blog. In the case of Terribleminds, it's primarily self-published, but often a large blog following will make the reprints attractive.

Yeah, if you have any inclination to publish the stuff on your blog, then don't put it on a blog at all, for two reasons:

1) The rights you can sell later get screwed up; First World Rights are generally the most lucrative, and you're burning them.

2) Why would anyone buy what they can have for free? If it's on your blog, it's there for free. Good luck selling it later.

Also, even if you delete your blog, how do you know it's really deleted and not just stored somewhere, waiting to be reactivated? You lose a lot of control over things you put up on the internet; post a picture or a story and there's nothing stopping someone from yoinking and reposting it, even if the law is on your side.

My thinking was always that my blog was for disposable writing and socializing with other blog writers. The most I'd post from my "real" writing was snippets for self-promotion purposes.

jjdebenedictis said:

Also, even if you delete your blog, how do you know it's really deleted and not just stored somewhere, waiting to be reactivated?

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I've been burned by this before. And even after you manage to convince the original host to delete that content from their servers, it's quite possible that it's been archived elsewhere outside of their control.

I have stuff archived from 25 years ago, scattered in various odd places online. I've always looked at blogs and such as good for snippets or other work I intend to be free content in perpetuity. I'd never post a large section, let alone a whole original story or novel online. (My agent would beat me senseless if I did. Then dump me.)

A friend of mine recently got taken to task by an exasperated editor, because the friend had posted a story on his blog. The editor said she could have bought the story, but now it had been 'published', so there was no point. My friend diplomatically explained that the editor *had* rejected a much earlier, rougher version of the story. They laughed about it and she bought his next finished piece.

I know another author who posted a free short story on her blog about 10 years ago, set in her published YA universe. When it came time to turn that story into a full novel, she took down the former. She's not worried about the old version floating around, because she changed and expanded so much. 'The story's a teaser now, like it always was meant to be', she says.

In the right venue with the right readers, online snippets and free stories can be great passive marketing tools.

Filigree said:

In the right venue with the right readers, online snippets and free stories can be great passive marketing tools.

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Great point. If you'd like to have short stories and such on your blog to market your writing, and then say, "Hey, I've got a novel out" then it could be a good lead-in.

But, as others noted, there's complications with posting work anywhere (which would amount to publishing, taking your first publishing right away) and trying to sell it later. Self-publishing can work out, and I know a ton of blogs that have published books that are the exact same content from the blog and have been successful. Some argue, "Why would you buy something that you can get for free?" Well, that content is better organized and can be printed out. Depending on the style of content, this can be great--and you can also correct and add more content. But if you're trade publishing, it can be difficult to pitch a previously-published work to a publisher.

smellycat6464 said:

My big fear is that if I compile my humor essays and short stories and the like into a novel, try to sell it, and someone with a suit and tie goes "hmmmm you posted that on WordPress in 2014. This can't be published. You're S.O.L., try again, dumbwad."

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As everyone else has said, this has to do with you giving up your first publication rights by posting them online, and nothing to do with creative commons licensing. You can however still do whatever you want with it because you're the creator of it. If you want to self-publish and sell it, that's great.

There's also the matter of, that nobody has brought up yet, if you post content to your website, you can make money off of it there with advertising revenue. However, unless you manage to create a really high-traffic site, that's going to be a pittance.

Smellycat, could you post a link to the contentious WP page about Creative Commons so we can get an idea of what's meant?

Just don't post any writing that you want to sell. Snippets are fine, a free story now and then is fine, and even a first chapter can be fine, but if it's something you actually want to sell, don't post the entire thing.

I prefer Blogger over Wordpress, but it's all personal preference. Experiment, find what suits your fancy, and use it.

I think John Scalzi published his first novel initially on his blog, or at least some chapters of it. But it's important to note that this was a while ago now, back when blogs were a relatively new thing, and everyone wasn't blog saturated. It's much harder to get a decent readership these days. And he had some connections already in the writing and publishing world. He was a journalist, I think, so he had a head start re drumming up followers.

As I understand it, his serialized novel chapters got a lot of readers, enough that a big publisher became interested in his book, and it became a bestseller after he published it. There are people who will pay for a polished and finished version of something they read earlier for free. Also, a published book will reach a different audience than something published in a blog.

However, the odds of someone doing what Scalzi did today are very, very small. Blogging ain't what it once was. Especially if you're a typical aspiring writer with no background in publishing and no fame or foot in the door in writing circles (I think Saul Beliow was Scalzi's grad advisor, and again, he worked in journalism).

Best to avoid posting work you hope to sell in any online place that's not password protected (note that the SYW forum here is not searchable via google, and you need a special password only accessible to logged-in members to access it as well).

I do know some writers who occasionally post freebies (things they don't plan to publish, or things they've already published somewhere and the rights have reverted) on their blogs.

Jamesaritchie said:

Just don't post any writing that you want to sell. Snippets are fine, a free story now and then is fine, and even a first chapter can be fine, but if it's something you actually want to sell, don't post the entire thing.

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Exactly -- if I post a whole story (which I did a few times under another writerly name), it's something I did with the intent for it to be free. Not something I want to sell. A first chapter of a novel would be fine too - because the reader isn't getting the whole story and if I later sell it, they'll have to buy in order to see what happens.

Roxxsmom said:

I think John Scalzi published his first novel initially on his blog, or at least some chapters of it.

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I'm thinking of a fairly famous - and debut/unpubbed at the time -- SFF author who (I think, though I'd have to check it out to be sure) got a deal based on the first chapter or two he'd posted online. That's pretty bloody rare though. But the point is, it was only a few chapters, so he didn't burn his rights.

You guys do realize that a ton of blog content gets repurposed and published all the time, right? And that fanfic posted online has been picked up by publishers for print?

For Creative Commons licensing, go to the source: http://creativecommons.org/.

A two-second Google for those who asked for a link...

Jeff

WeaselFire said:

You guys do realize that a ton of blog content gets repurposed and published all the time, right? And that fanfic posted online has been picked up by publishers for print?

For Creative Commons licensing, go to the source: http://creativecommons.org/.

A two-second Google for those who asked for a link...

Jeff

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The OP mentioned that s/he was worried that Wordpress might have the right to republish the work under CC. That's different from creating your own CC licence. Because the OP doesn't make it entirely clear what they mean, a link to the confusing page might be helpful.

The link to the CC site was in the first reply to the OP, as was a request for clarification.

WeaselFire said:

And that fanfic posted online has been picked up by publishers for print?



Jeff

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Sure, and one lucky soul has now hit the lottery four times. His chances were infinitely better than the chances of those who post fanfic online.

Helix said:

The OP mentioned that s/he was worried that Wordpress might have the right to republish the work under CC. That's different from creating your own CC licence. Because the OP doesn't make it entirely clear what they mean, a link to the confusing page might be helpful.

The link to the CC site was in the first reply to the OP, as was a request for clarification.

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I'm confused by it too. I did a bit of poking around and Wordpress has a support page on how to put your blog under creative commons, but considering it requires adding a widget and whatnot it sounded completely optional. The only place I know that requires you to post under creative commons to post at all is tindeck.