Something to be aware of.

[Lady Smith]

I've just found out that if a story you've written has been posted for free on the web no publisher or e.publisher will touch it with a barge pole.
The only time this rule has been broken is when a story is just so exceptional and beyond anything else that they'd consider it a fair risk to publish and that is rare.  Afterall who is going to buy a book if the thing is drifting around for free somewhere on the web. 
Posting a story to be read for free on a forum is called 'self-publishing' by the way.

Apparently though posting a chapter or two as a 'taster' is fine, but anymore than that and a writer would be skating on thin ice in their efforts to try and find a publisher.

This of course completely scuttles my plan of sharing my writing here first before getting it e.published. 

[cindianna_jones]

I posted 5 chapters of my book here. So far Amazon hasn't found it. They do look very hard too. However,  online publishing does not always prevent publishing. "The Martian" was entirely published online as a free novel. That was picked up by a major publisher and is a best seller. Hugh Howey, self published a book titled "Wool" a dystopian novel released in five parts. He has sold movie rights to the book and has written two more novels since.

If your writing is good, publishers will break the rules, especially when they can make money off your talent. If you want to share a couple chapters, you'll be fine. You may also self publish with little consequence from the big houses.

And if you are looking for quid pro quo draft editing and use MS Word to track changes, I'd be up for that. Beware that I write science fiction.

Cindi

Cindi

Cindi

[Lady Smith]

Thanks for the advice Cindi    I write Science Fiction too as well as speculative fiction and modern fantasy pieces like 'Pooka' which I've already posted the first two chapters on this forum.  Most of my stories have a tie in with being different in some way even though I don't actually write about transgender themes.

After our major network and server upgrade here at home things are being sorted out still, but soon I hope I'll have access to MS Word again.  For years I used Star Office and then Open Office, but with working in the cloud now I've started to use Word on-line which I've found to be really useful.

I'm not sure how good an editor I'd be Cindi, but I'll have a think about that.

[Newgirl Dani]

Thanks Lady Smith,

All Gone       I only have one concern and that is now that it is gone, they are no longer copyright protected.  The silver lining though is that for anyone to try and use it would "never" even come close to what is "really" going on in the story.  For that to happen they would have to be in my head, maybe not the best place for them to be      .   Dani

[Lady Smith]

Dani, an easy way to copyright your writing is to print it out, seal it in a large envelope and post it to yourself.  When it arrives DON"T OPEN THE ENVELOPE!  Make sure you put the envelope in a safe place.  The official postmark becomes your proof of copyright should you ever have to prove that your work is yours and it did exist on a certain date.