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Publishing writen works on-line, what's the deal?


Terial
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I'm working on a series of books, and I've finally started writing. I was looking around for self-publishing sites like Fictionpress, and I was wondering about a few things, and where the best place to publish. I'm also worried about publishing online for fear of someone stealing my work and making it into a game, book or some other media. (Not to seem like I have a big ego, it's just fear) I also wonder if I publish something online for people to see for free, wouldn't that potentially drive away a publisher?

My main reason is, I'd really like to be able to get helpful criticism on my writing. Not lame reviews like "OMG I LOVE YOUR STORY" or "This sucks... lol". I know there are several writers around here and I thought they might now best. So if you would help a fellow writer (hardly) out, I'd appreciate it. =)

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Also, the best way to get useful, reliable criticism is to share the story with individual people you trust, people who will be honest with you. Trust me, the internet is no place to look for good (not positive) feedback. Share your work with close family and friends, maybe even specific people you know over the internet well enough. Don't bother with the public domain, as not only will you get nothing of value, but it will be a stumbling block if you ever want to get that work published. Publishers are more often than not looking for first publishing rights, and when you make your work available free over the internet they lose those rights. Private readings are the way to go.

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Also, the best way to get useful, reliable criticism is to share the story with individual people you trust, people who will be honest with you. Trust me, the internet is no place to look for good (not positive) feedback. Share your work with close family and friends, maybe even specific people you know over the internet well enough. Don't bother with the public domain, as not only will you get nothing of value, but it will be a stumbling block if you ever want to get that work published. Publishers are more often than not looking for first publishing rights, and when you make your work available free over the internet they lose those rights. Private readings are the way to go.

Now, I wouldn't say that. Whenever I try playing people something I've produced all I've mainly gotten has been mindless praise ("Wow, this is better than your other stuff, you've really improved! This is great, keep up the good work!") instead of in depth criticism (Which I've only gotten from my dad, but he was a recording engineer so I expect it from him). The most in-depth reviews and criticisms I've gotten were from this very forum.

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Now, I wouldn't say that. Whenever I try playing people something I've produced all I've mainly gotten has been mindless praise ("Wow, this is better than your other stuff, you've really improved! This is great, keep up the good work!") instead of in depth criticism (Which I've only gotten from my dad, but he was a recording engineer so I expect it from him). The most in-depth reviews and criticisms I've gotten were from this very forum.

First, music is a little different in this aspect than writing. Most people do not have the depth of familiarity with music that they do with language. The average person could give you a basic proofreading, but would be unlikely to tell you that you were out of tune or off-key.

Second, I would definitely like to stress the parts about closeness and honesty. I would not trust anything I wrote to my parents because they are not close enough to that aspect of my talents to give a competent opinion (although I would trust them with productions of other natures). Similarly, I would not trust it to most of my closest friends who are close to both writing in general and my fascination for writing, because I do not think they would give honest opinions (and I'm not talking overly positive, either). However, there is one friend and most of my siblings to whom I would trust such a thing, because he and they are both familiar and close to me as a writer and likely to be open and honest about it.

Also, I did not say the internet was necessarily bad--just the public domain, for more than the reliability issue. I am sure it would be feasible to receive good feedback from specific people here if they were to be privately consulted, but I find it is generally worse for a writer looking to become professional to open his writing up to everyone before being published. Some of the best things for me as a writer have been private domain forums centered on writing workshops. Unfortunately, most of the ones I considered reliable are now long dead.

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Hey, if you've got any techniques to lower it, please do share them. Everything I tried resulted in a severe loss in quality. I kept it under 300k, which is the total upper limit for ANY sig (in my opinion), so it's not too bad, though I'd like it to be lower.

And by the way, KOTOR just popularized it, it didn't invent it. This version isn't even the KOTOR version (which has an extra line in it).

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