Writers thrive on feedback.
There’s an itch, deep inside us, that NEEDS other people to read our writing and tell us they enjoyed it.
Writing is a solitary activity. You spend hours, days, weeks, months, sometimes YEARS alone with your computer, clickety clacking out a story with only yourself and your music as company.
It’s hardly a surprise that we get impatient, edgy, and protective of our stories.
It’s also not a surprise that we want desperately to share it, but are also terrified that someone will steal our idea.
Thieves
Not to feed the paranoia TOO much, but it is true that there are people out there who will happily copy/paste your entire manuscript and pretend they wrote it. There are people (FRIENDS, even) who will read your work and then produce something so strikingly similar in tone, characterization, plot, and even character names that there’s no question it was stolen.
Slow down there, Paranoia Polly.
1) Do not post your entire manuscript anywhere that thieves can find. How can they copy/paste something they don’t have?
2) The first time a friend pulls the “accidentally” similar manuscript trick with you, confront them boldly and directly. THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND. Burn that bridge as fast as you can, people. Accidents happen, but if you’re pretty sure it’s stolen, it probably was.
3) Agents are not morons, nor are they greedy, soul-sucking horror monsters. They require a full, finished manuscript before they will take any author on as a client. Someone stealing a fraction of your work will not be able to get an agent or a publishing company to glance at them without a full manuscript. Additionally, agents like to know that they’re representing authors who can produce consistent work. A single stolen manuscript does not an author make.
4) Are you a writer or are you a one-trick pony? In the unspeakable, horrifying, worst-case scenario event that your manuscript is stolen and you find it on the shelves with someone else’s name under it – write another one. A better one. (And maybe don’t trust that person any more, kay?)
5) Ideas cannot be stolen. Any summary or synopsis of my story that I share with another person would result in a vividly different manuscript from them. Harry Potter is not the only wizard school book available. Graceling is not the only book where magic talent is revealed through funky eye colors. Arrows of the Queen is not the only book with a telepathic bond between a human and an animal. Choose is not the only book with air pirates and robots.
Take basic precautions against thieves, but don’t let your fear of them keep you from confidently pitching your book to other people.
Also, thievery is rare. Very, very rare. Most real writers have too many of their OWN ideas to worry about trying to steal yours. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Talented writers who can transform ideas into vivid, entertaining novels are treasured. So … don’t get kidnapped. You are more valuable than your idea.
Lawyers
Did you know that when you post your book publicly (on a blog, on a forum, in an eBook, as a publicly available pdf or document, or on a website) that you are using your legal electronic rights?
Did you know that a lot of publishers kind of want those rights themselves, so they can sell eBooks?
Choose is available, in its entirety, online. Even if it were the most entertaining story with the most effervescent of sparkling prose, the likelihood that it would be picked up by a publishing company is slim to none. Why? Because I have exhausted my electronic rights and made the text available for FREE to anyone with access to the website.
Assuming some big name agent or editor or publisher stumbled across it and became blinded by its brilliance (email me. seriously.) they are more likely to ask me “what else have you got” than “hey, let’s make money on this Choose thing you’re doing”.
That was a calculated decision on my part. I knew that before I started the project, and I knowingly dedicate time to write it that could be spent on another, salable manuscript.
If you decide to publish any or all of your writing online, you should be making the same decision.
Yes, authors post excerpts from their work on their blogs. I feel pretty confident that they’re not doing that behind their publisher’s back. They’re teasing you, trying to seduce you into buying their book and putting a little bread on their table. Those excerpts are timed to coincide with pending releases. It’s marketing and it’s brilliant, but it’s not the author working alone.
Also, a side note? Self-publishing doesn’t count as a publishing credit on your query letters, but it DOES use up some of those lovely legal printing rights. It’s an even bigger no-no to self-publish a novel and then try to sell it to a publishing company.
Yes, people have done this and succeeded in the past, but it’s a huge gamble. If you are planning to publish your novel, my advice is to share your work PRIVATELY and only with people you trust. Email, GoogleDocs with restricted viewing, that sort of thing.
Summary
Don’t allow your fear that your work will be stolen keep you from privately sharing writing with people you trust or (heaven forbid) even being able to talk about your book. The vast majority of writers, agents, editors, and friends are able to read entire books without trying to copy or steal from them. We’re too busy with our own stories and ideas.
Stop and think before you publish. While sharing a prologue or a chapter isn’t likely to ruin your chances at publication, self-publishing or posting large tracts of your work just might. Why should the publishing companies buy the author cow when readers can get the milk manuscript for free? (or … something. Look, just work with me here, okay? I’m working on a coffee deficit.)
DO share your work with trusted friends and fellow writers.
DO feel free to share any writing you don’t intend to publish.
DO be careful.
DO be a creative, strong, and confident writer.
I’m probably weird in a particularly computer geeky way, but I still wouldn’t trust this kind of valuable, personal intellectual property content to the cloud (e.g. Google Docs) unless that’s your only backup option. The advantage is it’s accessible anywhere; the disadvantage is that it’s accessible anywhere, so one stolen password gets everything, without needing physical access to your computer.
Definitely keep regular off-site backups. Encrypted drives at a friend’s home, for example.
But that’s just my 0.014 euros.
I definitely agree with keeping one copy offline at least. I know some writers who have a completely separate computer not connected to internet used solely for their writing – a laptop or tablet or something small, for instance.
But, all in all, great advice. Pick and choose who you show what to. Maybe you only show the entire completed story to one or two people like spouse or family member, but you show pieces to other trusted friends for more specific feedback on specific parts.
Tristina´s last blog ..Wouldn’t It Be Cool If– Oh, Wait, There is One…
@Nicolas Ward
I still think the encryption thing is pushing the paranoia limits, as is the leeriness of Googledocs. While I agree that the password as the single point of hacking is weak security, I don’t think there are roving bands of manuscript thief hackers.
HOWEVER, from a totally non-thievery standpoint, electronic backups stored off-site are VERY IMPORTANT. What if your house burns down? That’s actually more likely to happen than a cyber thief, and your work is far more likely to be lost that way.
@Tristina
The only reason to keep the entire manuscript away from friends would be because you were afraid they’d steal it. If they can offer constructive feedback that you value AND you trust them, I see no reason not to share it with them.
I do recommend waiting until you have the manuscript to a point you’re happy with. It’s frustrating as a reader to be expected to read a manuscript multiple times for someone, and for half of your advice to be disregarded with an “Oh, I know. I was gonna fix that later”. Well. Um. Fix it before you ask me to read it, then, neh?
Yikes, tangent alert! Sorry about that!
My writing laptop is connected to the internet and the only worry I have is viruses, so I have my data backed up to an external hard drive and a thumb drive kept at work, just in case something happens to the laptop.
I don’t think hackers are furiously pounding away at my defenses to steal my ideas. Maybe if I was Stephen King, I’d consider that more likely.
Want to know a secret? I like your writing a lot better than Stephen King’s. That said, I agree with you. ;)
I have also decided I need a portable 3.5″ hard drive to carry around with my laptop. While I use Dropbox for offsite (cloud) backup, I miss the security of backing up while away from home for 3 weeks at a time as I am now. So yeah…definitely need to fix that.
Steve Hall´s last blog ..Saucy Writing Prompt: Dictionary and Pest
@Steve
*laughs* One down, two billion to go! *air guitar*
I’m squarely in the paranoia camp. I personally know someone that had academic work stolen from a “friend” (and then my friend was ousted from the university he was at because of his inability to handle the situation politically) and I’ve known several writers that would outright refuse to show anyone anything for fear of stealing. I’ve also heard horror stories about people showing up to “writing conferences” and having people steal their ideas there. Proving intellectual theft seems like a fairly difficult thing, so you’ve really got to trust the person you’re showing things to or never show things you actually intend on publishing (or maybe you could document showing someone something).
@Steve
@Nicholas
Ever look at TrueCrypt? You can encrypt a file and drop it out on the cloud (GoogleDocs, Dropbox, or what-have-you) or a thumb-drive.
I agree, self-publishing is bad if your ultimate goal is real publishing. Once your work is “out there”, it’s out there, and publishers won’t touch it unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will sell like hotcakes: and very few of us have the time, energy, and resources to do this.
I told the interwebs all about this when I made this image:
http://media.backtothefridge.com/images/poster-sp.jpg
Charlie Hills´s last blog ..The Greatest of These…
@Brad-o
I dunno, seems like “don’t share your full manuscript with someone you don’t trust a LOT” should cover most of that. However, that’s just my opinion, based on never having my work stolen, having the work I am exposing to the world be pretty clearly labeled as mine, and having read other folks’ manuscripts without ever desiring to steal it or its ideas for myself.
@Charlie
Awesome, awesome image. *laughs* And yes, I totally agree. Especially on the time and resources thing. I may have to hire the hubby to do the formatting for the second volume of Choose – formatting this first one is taking entirely too much time!
Tami´s last blog ..Thieves, Lawyers, and Web Posting
@Tami
You’d think, but the problem is there are plenty of people you may think you can trust that you really can’t. Hense, paranoia. It’s more critical in an academic setting or when sharing work between professionals (where the idea isn’t necessarily a dime a dozen and/or your peers are capable of producing your ideas quickly and well, even among their own ideas).
On a somewhat related note, I’ve also been involved in usurping someone’s administrative blog priviledges (because the guy de-admined the central blog author and I happened to be the blog owner).
So, maybe I have trust issues or maybe I just know people that have been involved with unsavory characters. Either way, I’m in the paranoia camp. ;) There are very few people I would trust with anything I actually cared about — you made the list, btw. Of course, in my case, there are very few things I care about as far as intellectual property is concerned so it’s kindof moot. If I were capable and didn’t want to make a career out of writing, I would be prone to write the next great American novel and publish it on the internet.
@Brad-o
I’m not sure we’re really disagreeing here. It’s just a matter of scale. Sharing only with people that you know you can trust. College paper and idea theft is absolutely rampant, and because the scale is so small, idea theft in that arena is also a concern.
There are authors unable to pitch their story to an agent because they’re concerned about manuscript theft, though, and that’s a point where it’s taken too far.
I’d also say that encrypted backups and avoiding allowing the manuscript to be privately emailed or stored on the web is also going to far, but that’s a personal preference.
My point in the blog post (which, if I have to say it here, means I did a poor job in the post) is that although novel theft CAN and DOES happen, it’s a lot rarer than many writers think it is, and taking basic precautions when sharing writing should be enough without taking it to extremes.
Most theft occurs because of deliberately shared information. The person most likely to steal your manuscript knows you and you probably let them read it.
Tami´s last blog ..Thieves, Lawyers, and Web Posting
@Tami
Either we agree or we’re two ships passing in the night.
I wasn’t criticizing the post. I just had semi-relevant personal experience on this one — mostly with the same friend getting the short-end each time (which is amazing but apparently happens in academia more frequently than you’d think). So, if I had a point, it would be that your ability to determine who you can trust might be bad and it may be a good idea to just keep the things near and dear to your heart, if you’re worried about someone stealing them, to yourself.
The encryption thing is mostly just me geeking out. If someone’s truly concerned about security on the cloud, it’s an easy thing to do. While it’s highly unlikely that the Chinese government was interested in your story when they hacked Google, you may be as bad (or worse) at password management as you are at trusting people. That means people you know might still steal, maybe without you finding out, and an easy extra layer of defence might not be a terrible idea for “important” or “valuable” work.
@Brad
True on the password thing, and that’s a great point. Being concerned about who you share your work with (especially if you have reason to distrust your friends) is a moot point if your passwords are easily guessable.
Birthdays, pet names, mother’s maiden names, and the same password you use for everything else are NOT strong passwords. =]
Tami´s last blog ..Thieves, Lawyers, and Web Posting