Hi,

I’m a new subscriber to your ezine and am enjoying reading it. Here is my question.

I am in the process of writing a novel. So far I have about 24,000 words written, proofed, and rewritten but still have probably a year of hard work ahead of me.

Maybe I am impatient or just a rookie wanting his stuff to be read but is there an acceptable, safe way to begin posting, in a serialized sense, my book onto a website? I would like to begin getting readers’ reactions but am afraid of someone stealing either the premise or one of the characters of the book (it is character driven).

I thought about building a website and posting the chapters as they were completed but am just a tad afraid.

Again, I enjoy your site and would appreciate any advice you would be willing to give (oh yeah…I plan to submit my book to Booklocker.com when it is complete).

Thanks,
Dave

This is what I tell authors:

If I didn’t post content for fear of copyright infringement, I’d already be out of business. There really is no other way to connect to your readers as fast as the Internet. Just be sure to put copyright notices on everything. (Some people think everything online is in the public domain.) Even if you only marketed in print, there would still be the risk of intellectual property theft. It’s something we all fear, but few of us are actual victims when it comes to books.

Famous horror author Doug Clegg successfully distributed chapters of his books via email while writing them and that proved to be a huge success. People who read the email excerpts wanted the print copy when the book was complete. Read more about Doug and his books HERE. Doug is also successfully selling his books on eBay! You can see his eBay storefront HERE.

Hugs,
Ang