Advice on starting a blog for promotion

Questions for the resident (former) agent
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ct_mitchell
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Advice on starting a blog for promotion

Post by ct_mitchell » January 8th, 2014, 11:00 pm

Nathan,

First off, thanks so much for the work that you do. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say you are one of the more valuable resources for young writers online.

I've written a handful of short stories and essays, and had some of those published. And as a sports writer, I've won a handful of AP awards for articles and columns. All that said, I've built quite a following, as far as online readership goes, and I have a lot of interest from friends and acquaintances, wanting to keep up with me while I attempt to write my first novel. I have a desire to start a blog to record my journey through inspiration, creation and the inevitable frustration of trying to get published. My question is — are there any publishing rules (unwritten or not) that would prevent a young writer like myself from posting very small and random snippets from my unfinished and unpublished novel on said blog. It seemed to me like a good way to not only establish my own voice, but promote interest in what I hope will someday be a published book. That said, would agents/editors/publishers frown on any of that?


Thanks in advance!

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Nathan Bransford
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Re: Advice on starting a blog for promotion

Post by Nathan Bransford » January 11th, 2014, 12:02 pm

Here's my advice on that:
On the all-important matter of how much work to post online -- I think it's fine to post some work. However, I would be very, very, very careful about posting excerpts from a novel you want to publish. If you can control the material and the amount you are posting is limited to a chapter or two and you can pull the work from the Internet at any time, I don't think there's necessarily a problem (but again, there are varying opinions about this).

But be exceedingly, ridiculously, copiously careful when you allow excerpts of your novel to be published in journals and/or elsewhere -- not necessarily because of the risk someone stealing your work (that's extremely rare) but rather because you might be tying up the rights. As always, know what you sign!
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2008/08 ... sites.html

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