I am grateful for the contributor of the last blog. His research seems to be write on! (get it? Write on? Anyways it seems as though the going understanding with internet law, is that anything written on a forum or blog is considered published.

In the August 2005 edition of Writers Digest, there is a small section called Questions & Quandaries. The first question has directly to do with what we’ve been talking.

The question is something like: Does having a story posted on a blog or an online writers’ forum mean that first-time electronic media rights can’t be sold to a publication? Does it mean that you’ve already used your first serial rights, too? What should I tell an editor when I am submitting a story or poem I’ve posted on my blog, even if only 50 people have read it?

Great question I think. That pretty much sums up, but a little more thoroughly what I was asking.

The answer given, basically, if you’ve put it on a blog or forum, you can’t sell your first electronic media rights elsewhere, says their legal expert. Whether 50 or 50 million people see it, it is published. Other publishers don’t have the chance to be the first to publish it, online or otherwise. Most contracts require you to warrant that piece hasn’t been printed or published in any form.

The going thought process is that it would be best to notify the publisher or editor that it is on your blog, and they might be willing to arrange something.

So, I kind of feel like a poem blogged would almost be a waste, but I still like to share my poetry, and I can always save them for my next chapbook. So I think that I will be wise in what I put on my blog, and what I submit for compititions and publications.