Wanting to publish book soon.. should i keep uploading on wattpad?

To all of you self published and published authors out there, I want to publish my book - both on Ebook and as a novel itself but I am hearing all these opinions coming at me from left, right and centre where my family and friends feel i shouldn't keep uploading my chapters on here because they think no one will be interested to read my book when i publish it. Is this true? I would like some opinions on what to do. My fans on here love my story and i don't want to let them down but am I letting my story down at the same time??

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I may not be a published author, but i was thinking the same thing when i saw this question. So, i looked it up and i found this:

A lot of publishers are anal retentive on the issue of retaining electronic copyrights of material they also get the print copyrights for. It means that their assumption is that they are buying both the rights to distribute electronically and in print your works, so if your works are freely available on a website, that tends to create negotiation issues with a publisher. It doesn't mean it now becomes impossible, just that the complexity and difficulty level is raised. If you are already published, like Brandon Sanderson, then you can put your works up for free and then the manuscript edited portion is then sold by the publisher, because you now have negotiation power. But for new authors, it puts them in an interesting negotiation position. It means you would have to consent to removing the material from your site or all sites to the publisher, which essentially makes your work less appealing and also makes your negotiation position slightly weaker. However, if you can present demographic evidence that your novel has popularity, that's another issue.

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Mostly, however, if you post your material to your own website or something you can shut down or erase, then it still remains in your possession and you can trade away the electronic copyrights to a publisher. If it is not in your possession but somewhere else entirely, then you would have to get them erased from there as well, which may or may not be possible.

The only thing the publisher cares about is selling books. Depending on the publisher/individual in question, they can look at the same internet copyright issue and believe it will sell more or that it will sell less, depending on that person's perspective. It is, of course, easier to work with people who understand the power of internet marketing and word of mouth on the internets but concurrently it also means more doors are closed to you if such publishers are adamant or have a policy about "first rights" or some such.

I have heard about the 'first rights' before as well, its something about publishers wanting to be the FIRST to publish your work or something. Anyways, i hope this helped a little.

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i'm not very experienced and i didn't publish any books yet (tho i plan to) but i think u should post the beginning of ur story on wattpad so u could get a fan base going, but do not upload the entire book. what's the point of buying the book if u could just read it on watt pad??? that's just my opinion.

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I would not post more than a chapter or two of any story you are planning to publish commercially. In practice, it's not likely that having your story available on WP will reduce sales or damage you commercially but a publisher is likely to take that view that it has already been published and won't take a chance.

However, there is a thing called First Book Syndrome, where even prize winning authors never quite managed to their their first book up to scratch and fit for publication. You might take the view that you are unlikely to sell your first book, so treat this one was a learning experience and use it to generate feedback and readers who might be prepared to buy your second book.

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My recommendation: Keep it off a publicly available website. Until a) you edit it thoroughly, including getting feedback from other writers you know and trust; and b) you begin getting acceptances from magazines and publishers, you run a high risk of putting out material that may or may not be up to snuff for the reading public. And sadly, if someone associates your name with sub-standard material, there's little you can do to change their mind in the future.

Also, many magazines (not sure about publishers...at least if you stick with one or two chapter excerpts) consider publicly available text as "previously published," which will negate your ability with most to sell "first rights" to that work.

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I've only published one poem book, but I can give you this much to think about based on it. 1) Once you decided to publish and they agree ask them. They will probably tell you to take it off the internet. Mine did. Small pieces can be used for commercial use, example Amazon.com where you can read a couple pages of the book before buying it.

Bottom line. If its the publishers money being spent to publish they book they will not want it available for free online.

However having the whole book up can influence its sells. The people who are most likely to buy the book are the people you already know. And if they can read it for free, that kinda negates the urge to buy their own copy. Most people who've already read the story all the way through probably won't.

Take into account that most of your readers are teens and can't buy your book with a credit card. It might not be available to them at their local book store either, depending on where they live. Given all these difficulties involved for them to Buy Your Book, can you blame them if they prefer to read it for free?

If your going to publish and remove it from the internet look into getting it copyrighted for real. This way, if someone decided to copy it while you posted it online, your ass is covered in the future. Some publishers will copyright it for you, but most leave that road up to you.

Also if you are under the age of 18, expect to get your parents evolved. A teenagers signature isn't good enough on a binding contract, a guardian or parent will have to sign with you.

Hope this helps. Your first published book will always be a rough experience either way you go. I haven't tried magazines, they might be easier. Good luck though :)

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Publication to any website available to the public (i.e., one that doesn't require a password to access your story) is considered 'first publication'. This reduces any fee(s) you might get and may deter a publisher from accepting your book for publication.

My thoughts: publish self-contained excerpts of longer works, and only occasionally whole stories. That way you can build an audience before mainstream publication, without giving up your chances of said publication.

Also: I am a publisher, so I know about these things ;)

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@RaraEve All of the comments I read here deal with a publisher. What I read in your question was that seff-publishing was an option. With self-publishing, what people said doesn't apply.

I know someone who posts his novel a chapter at a time on a free site while the complete novel is for sale on sites like Lulu. In his blog on the free site he lets his fan base know the full novel is available for sale. According to him, the readers who are impatient buy the eBook even though it will eventually be available for free. And some of his readers want a print copy so they buy the paperback.

Me, I wouldn't offer it for free if I was selling it.

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Like the above poster, I get the idea from your post that you want to self-publish. How much of your story is posted already? Your motivation makes the difference. Not everybody reads any one site. If you want to get people reading it, post away. You're in control if you're self-pubbing. If you want to sell, post sample chapters but sell the whole book. As an unknown self-pubbed author don't expect miracles, but if the writing is good, word gets round.

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I don't have a tone of advice on what works but I can share some observations:

If you are hopping to sell with a traditional publisher, post as little as possible online. The above posts are 100% accurate that you will not get favorable terms if they do not have 100% first publication rights. Now, there are a lot of advantages to going with a traditional publisher, not the least of which are professional cover art, professional copy editing, and marketing.

If you are thinking about self publishing then it comes down to what you want to value. You absolutely can make it available free on line but you will cut into your own profits. Why pay for what you can get for free?

The trade off is that if you saturate your market you can make up the difference in volume. Think of it this way: if 10,000 people read your book and 3% pay for it, you get exactly the same amount of money if 600 people read the blurb but 50% pay for it. So there is merit to going big on the audience.

A third option is to simply take the "Free to Play" model and make up the difference other ways. One of my novel projects is 100% to read online and always will be. I hope to make ~some~ money on it by having fans either subscribe (because hey, it's nice to pay for something you like) and by buying copies for their kindle to read offline.

It's way too early to know if this is viable though so... I'll have to keep you posted.

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Publish a stand-alone novel excerpt. Wattpad is very unique. You can get tens of thousands of reads and not make a dime. I am new with few but have made a great living writing professionally for a long time and I have no prob putting SOME material up.

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I read somewhere that having a book up on Amazon ebook store and then posting the book on wattpad actually INCREASES the ebook sales on Amazon.

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I will prefix this with "my opinions only" and they aren't necessarily right.

My book is out on Amazon and yet I continue to post here. I am new to Wattpad, but I can see it's tremendous potential to help authors.

The world has turned -- and the business model for publishing is no longer the same. It's just like Social Media. I wouldn't worry about making money or hurting your chances of getting published.

PLATFORM is the most important thing. If you can gather a large enough audience, or a dedicated following, a publisher WILL sit up and take notice. If you can go to a publisher and say, hey I've got this book and it has about 15 million reads, do you really think they're going to turn you away because they don't have first publishing rights?

It's how Fifty Shades of Gray became a hit (it started off as a FREE fan-fic) and why Amanda Hocking is now a famous author.

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@MichaelLimjoco Not necessarily so, as some members of Wattpad have found. As you'll see, some of the top stories on Wattpad are badly written and structured. The fact that they have 15 million reads does not make them a story that readers will pay money for.

If you go to a publisher or agent and say "I've written a story on Wattpad that got 15 million reads," then you have a chance of getting your next story read, but they are not interested in the one that's already out there.

Quoting EL James as the way to make it in publishing is a bit like saying that the way to make a fortune is to buy a lottery ticket, because someone did and won.

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