Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I plan to launch a blog in a couple of months to start building my readership. I know from experience that one of the best ways to grow blog traffic is to keep posting new material. Therefore, I intend to publish approximately four posts a week. (I've already written many of them.) Also, approximately once a month, I will publish a poem. These I'll release both as text and in .mp3 format. (I performed slam poetry for years in D.C area clubs, so I have plenty of material for this too.)

Finally, approximately every eight weeks or so, I plan to publish a short story. I have half a dozen story ideas so that will get me through the first year. I've already written two of these which were published in my community college's anthology years ago because my creative writing professor liked them so much. Here's my question: will publishing short stories on my website hurt my relationship with the publishing industry? Examine my logic here. My goal is to be a novelist. One of the best ways to convince people that I'm a good writer is to give them free samples. I can't write novels very quickly, but short fiction, I can bang out like license plates. And since short story collections by debut writers don't sell at all, I'm not really losing anything in terms of potential sales by giving them away. Plus, my problem is obscurity, not poverty.

On the other hand, what if I also want to submit these stories to magazines or competitions or whatever so that they will become award-winning stories? Is the website thing going to screw me? Or what if a Hollywood producer visits my website and thinks to himself, “That'd make a great movie!” Will his next thought be, “But it's already on the Internet so I can't use it,”?

Ditto for the poems, though I'm much less concerned about the poetry because poetry magazines would NEVER publish the kind of poetry I write.

Magazines and competitions and the like want original, unpublished material, and they'll be acquiring first publication rights. That means if it's already published on your blog it won't be eligible. Now, sometimes they'll acquire permanent rights, but often it will be for a short term - 6 months or a year. So in that period, they have the sole right to publish that story. After the time period has passed, the rights will usually revert to you, at which point you can do whatever you want with it, including putting it up on your blog. IN other words, you could look to publish a story first, and if successful you could then post the story up on your blog after the rights eventually revert back to you.

There are a few magazines and podcast venues that are interested in reprints, so the stories might still be eligible there - however, these venues actually want the stories to have been published in other professional venues, as weeding through the slush has already been done. They'll reprint stuff, looking for the best of the published works.

As for movie rights (shouldn't we all be so lucky), putting it on your blog wouldn't be a problem. Movie people would option the rights for a piece if they wanted to adapt it for film (they'd pay you for the rights to use your material, in other words, whether traditionally published or not).

The question, really, is simply what you think is the best for you. It's hard to publish a bunch of stories and catch peoples eyes that way, but it's also hard to build a blog up to the sort of popularity that really makes an impact and opens doors. The best thing, of course, is simply to write a great novel. That's the central thing that really matters in the end if you want to be a novelist. The benefits of the rest is pretty variable. The best thing might be simply to decide what you want to0 do. All things being equal, do what you're going to enjoy doing. If you love the blog world and the instant feedback, go that way. If you're really keyed toward seeing yourself in print, maybe hit the literary magazines first. Considering the unknown returns of all this activity, I think it's usually best just to follow your heart on the matter.

I think Bryan is right on target with the rights issue - that's what I've heard, too.

If you're starting a blog to build a following, this is going to sound weird, but I don't think I'd post original material. For a blog, you want to post relatively short topics that have a fresh or fun or clever or emotional or intelligent take that people want to discuss. People go to a blog to participate, to get to know the blogger and connect. Bloggers who understand that have a step up.

Granted, that's just my opinion - for what it's worth. Not an expert here. :)

Check out a few of the really popular blogs in your field and see how they do it. Good bloggers tend to be very engaging and every post is interesting, often funny. They interact with those who come there. In fact....someday soon, someone will write a book on how to be a blogger. In fact, maybe they have.

Be aware - blogging is a huge amount of work and it can take a very long time to build a following. One short cut would be to go to blogs in your field and become known there. That might lead folks to your blog.

Sigh. I have such mixed feelings about this whole social networking thing. But good luck!

Thank you so much Bryan and Mira!

Bryan, that's exactly the kind of advice I needed to hear. You, sir, are an invaluable resource. Now I will check my heart to see what's more important to me. Or, more likely, I'll find some way to split the difference: submit every other one for publication, etc.

Mira, I hear what you're saying and I know first hand the kind of work that goes into maintaining a blog. I had one in the early 2000's (when we were calling them online journals) that was getting a thousand unique visitors a month before I shut it down. The popularity was starting to scare me and I didn't want to lose my (gov't) job.

My original post was probably misleading as I want to launch more than just a blog. The blog will be a part of the site, but there will be other parts. One of those parts will host my creative works. I'm a big believer in the free sample but not as a substitute for short entertaining articles, like you suggest. Also, I have no problem getting involved with the readership. I'll probably fixate on the site like an obsessed rabid animal (but in a good way.)

Thanks so much again for your wisdom, the both of you.

No problemo.