If you don't know the main argument against doing it is that publishers will not buy work that has already been published (say a blog). Thus, if your goal is to get published, then it might not be the best idea or at very least only allow friends to access your notes.

I'm pretty much completely on the other side. Right now my work is open to anyone. I write for the sake of writing, I really do write for art. I want anyone to be able to stumble across it, like it, and follow it if they chose. I think losing some short stories and poems in exchange for a fan base is incredible. It's not huge right now, but each week it grows and each week more follow my story.

I'm going to be writing for the rest of my life and I hope to constantly improve. The encouragement from friends and strangers help so much when you're having a bad day and don't feel like writing. No matter how internally driven you are, if you're honest, you can admit it pushes you through the bad.

Someday I do want to be published. I want one of my novels on the shelves of Barnes and Nobles. But I'm willing to go through years and years of writing for the love of writing, writing for my friends and family, writing for anyone who resonates with what I'm doing. Treating the people who appreciate your art well is probably one of the most important thing you can do as a writer.

I'm even looking into how to distribute some of it free through Kindle.

That's my opinion, and I would hazard its the more common strategy for writers.

Most writers want to do it full time and then means being professionally published--it serves as Darwinian razor with regard your stories. You keep writing them and seeing if they fly to professional levels. One day they will--we hope.

One of the factors that made me switch to fanfic for awhile was money---I wasn't getting any for my work, and if I wasn't going to get money out of writing, I might as well have some fun. (And it was.)

As for standards, well, I carried my own standards with me. I wrote with the intent to entertain both myself and the hypothetical reader---that's my aim, commercial work or fanfic. (If the comments were anything to judge by, I think I succeeded.)

1) no publisher is going to want to touch the stuff you self-published on Facebook (unless you get 5000 hits a week or become uber-famous or something)

and

2) building a fanbase on Facebook is not something you can really use to advance your career until after you have a book contract and someone starts talking about marketing

then I think you're fine. As long as you fully understand what you're doing and what your motivations are for doing it - and don't think you're accomplishing something you're not - then I don't see any real harm in it. Unless you think you're doing all of the FB writing at the expense of something else?

Recently, I've begun leaning towards doing it. However, one question in particular that started my tailspin in the first place crept back to the surface: what do I post as a freebie? Stories that I'm currently attempting to / planning on selling in the conventional way? Stories that were rejected by every print and/or digital market I submitted to? Stories from my recent past that I wrote but ultimately chose not to submit? Stories specifically crafted for freebie consumption?

For those who do this, I'm curious to know which of the above approaches they practice.

I haven't updated in awhile...come first of the year, I may put up my rejected output for 2009...which so far is just two more stories...if the one that's out now gets bounced all around...

[edited 'cause I messed up typing in my own site.]

Now, I agree with the idea of being good to your fans. But I'm not convinced that putting up substandard work is doing that. If it's not good enough to be published, then is that what I want to become known for?

So, for me, if I happen to get a couple of short stories published--and I do hope to someday--then I would wait for the rights to revert back to me. Those stories have passed the test. They are good enough. And those I would consider putting up for free access on a website.

I believe very strongly in my novel-length works, as I'm sure you do about your short stories. I just admit that I'm not nearly as good at short stories. Therefore, a professional and objective opinion is not something I'm going to ignore.

Also it's hard to tell why a story isn't accepted, or, properly, why it's rejected, when all I get are form letters.

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I can compare what they're publishing with what I've written, and I think my stories are as good as some of that stuff, too.

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Subjectiveness such as this can be a blinding mindset, yet it can also task a writer to achieve great things. Let's be honest: there are aspiring writers and multiply-published professionals alike out there who got their primary inspiration to take the difficult steps from 'reader' to 'participant' simply from their belief that they could write better stories than what was currently being published. Wrong reason to get into writing? I don't believe that for a minute. The fact that they were even comparing stories they've already written to someone else's stories tells me that they have, at the extreme least, an interest in the profession. To me, wanting to outdo other authors is no different a reason than striving to break into publishing to make ends meet (which I also have no problem with); doing so could very well lead to some great literary works that the rest of us will treasure for decades to come.

Self-publishing doesn't have to mean printing chapbooks and that sort of thing, it could be just hosting a blog site with your original fiction on it, or publishing pages on Facebook for your friends, etc. I've heard of twitter novels, there's really something out there for everyone.

I heard an author speak recently about this topic and he came down strongly on the side of self-publishing. I can see the benefits that he sees (and he was speaking of a more traditional "print up your books and then sell them to people/put them on amazon/do your own marketing." style of self-publishing, not necessarily online publishing.)

However, that's not the route I choose to travel. I see from your original post that you are writing for the joy of it. That's great, channel that feeling, stay with it. You don't have to publish via traditional routes to feel successful or to be able to meet your writing goals.

One of my writing goals is to get to be so famous that I have to move because my fans have found where I live and are camping on my front lawn, something I just don't see happening without going the traditional publication route. But you never know...maybe there's a Paolini in me.

I think it really comes down to your own personal goals and what you want to achieve. I do think it's important for writers to be aware of the ways they can easily use up their "first publication rights" (which is what most publishers buy) by posting their content on their blogs or websites or FB pages or whatever. So long as people are aware and are making choices based on that information, hey - whatever works for you!

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I do think it's important for writers to be aware of the ways they can easily use up their "first publication rights" (which is what most publishers buy) by posting their content on their blogs or websites or FB pages or whatever.

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I revisited this point while I was updating select pages of my website. Actually...one page in particular.

While researching various approaches to writing agent query letters, I noticed a few agents praised the fact that authors (even the unpublished ones) have their own web site (and I'm not talking about having a Facebook presence). Going a step further, some writers posted the first chapter or scene of the story they were seeking representation for on their site for the benefit of the agent. I liked that idea tremendously, and posted the first scene of "Metzgerhund Empire" on my site.

But, now...KayTi's commnent has me wondering if I'm not shooting myself in some way. Is this even an issue when I've posted one short scene of a 70K word novel?

I also plan to pose this question to a few agents, but I'm curious to know if anyone here has any insight or experience as to how this scenario might play out.

It isn't the whole thing, and no editor or agent is going to count creating a partial as publication, no matter how many other editors and agents have already looked at it.

I think I'd recommend that you actually call it a partial (or part of a partial?) on your website, so everyone will know what it is you are posting.

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complete partial

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