One of the issues of being a writer is getting people to read your work. In this age of self-publishing, with so many people being able to get their work out there, the pool is getting quite filled. Having your work stand out is getting harder. One of the ways to get it seen is to offer your writing for free, but what are the real costs for doing that?
Consider the many different ways a writer can put their work for free. You could include a free sample on your blog or website where people who read your blog can also see what you write to decide whether or not they like it. You can publish your work on different platforms like Amazon’s and set the price to free for promotions (like you can through Amazon’s KDP Select program) or even set up a book as “permafree”, which means the price always remains free. You can post your work through websites such as a fan fiction site or a dedicated free site like wattpad.com. It seems like there are many ways to offer your work for free.
As a concept, it seems like a great idea. It’s a form of marketing to possibly garner you some readers. And there are some who have benefited from it such as Beth Reekles, a 17-year-old, who got a publishing deal for three books with a Random House imprint based on the popularity of her work on Wattpad. There are authors out there who got their start on fan fiction sites such as E.L. James and Cassandra Clare. If an author who is just starting out wants to gain some readers, what better way to try and build a readership before publishing his or her first works?
Reekles’ story isn’t the only one from Wattpad that is encouraging. Dianne Greenlay outlined how Wattpad helped her self-published novel Quintspinner – A Pirate’s Quest reach 500,000 reads. Greenlay details the benefits of using Wattpad, but it should be noted that her book fit the main readers on the site. It seems to mesh well with writers of the YA genre, so it’s possible that not every genre would do as well there. For every writer like Greenlay, there are many others who post and get hardly any reads on their work.
As for fan fiction sites, there are many that cover all manners of subjects that fans can post extensions of stories, new stories for different characters, and other ways to express their love for the original work through writing. It seems that lately, fan fiction sites have been getting a negative nod because of being fodder for plagiarists to find and use for their own nefarious reasons. The case of Jordin Williams and the plagiarized NA novel is one example where some of the lifted text came from a fan fiction site. And more examples of this happening have popped up since then.
The availability of free writing is the real danger. Diana Peterfreund wrote about the epidemic of plagiarism and its effect on indie writers on her site. She wrote, “Liz Burns at Tea Cozy, her SLJ blog, reported on an instance of another Amazon author, Jessica Beckwith, was outed in the midst of her highly publicized blog tour as having stolen all her work from yet another free-fiction site, Fictionpress. The thirteen authors she’d stolen from were livid…”. From reading her post, all authors who provide their work for free should start to worry about what could happen to it.
If you put your writing for free somewhere where anyone can read it, you have to assume that someone untrustworthy could come and steal parts or all of it.
Peterfreund used the verb “scraping” as a way to describe what the current plagiarists are doing. They go into the free sites, copy, and paste it into a text that they can then self-publish under a name they choose. They can even do the typical marketing of any self-published author such as blog tours to promote the work. They make the money they can until someone recognizes the stolen works. Then they disappear, presumably with the money they made. “Scraping” is a good term for this as it has a pejorative message. They aren’t creating a work. They are scraping bits and pieces to stitch together to make something horrible. And what’s left are scraps and hurt feelings.
Plagiarism isn’t found only in the indie writing world, so it would be a mistake to say it reflects poorly on those who self-publish. There have been countless cases of plagiarism and fraud in the traditional publishing world as well. But it hits closer to home in the indie world because using the marketing tool of free has been beneficial to indie writers. Using Amazon’s KDP Select and their free days used to rocket sales for writers and get them more visible, although its effectiveness has declined in recent times. Putting the first novel in a series as a “permafree” option has helped authors promote and sell the following books in the series.
At this point, there hasn’t been any way to really stop the “scraping” method. It would be great if publishing platforms like Lulu, Amazon, Smashwords, or any of the others would utilize a text reader that catches plagiarism much like what’s used in educational institutions. Having used those myself, I can say that within less than 24 hours, the software can catch down to the percentage of copied text. It would be an easy way to stop this practice of plagiarism.
You have to ask yourself if the benefits of free outweigh the threats. If you put your writing for free somewhere where anyone can read it, you have to assume that someone untrustworthy could come and steal parts or all of it. If you feel you really do want to make it free, it would benefit you to find a way to do it so that someone can’t just highlight the text and copy. If you make it just a little harder where they’d have to type out the entire work themselves, perhaps that extra step would deter some from “scraping” your work. Until there’s a way to stop plagiarizers from using stolen words, it’s up to the writers to protect their own work so that “free” doesn’t end up costing too much.
Falls Into Writing 
It’s a really scary prospect, to post something online and know that it’s just one websearch away from being stolen, and becoming a wasted effort. It doesn’t help that as you said, the writing market is so saturated, that fiction authors often have to risk it to get the break they need. And once it’s out there, it’s hard to claim it back.
I agree that Amazon and other e-publishers have a responsibility to check for plagiarism before a work is published. You wouldn’t hire an employee without checking references. By publishing anything that has been stolen, surely they become complicit in the theft, and owe compensation to the writer.
To be honest, it’s not just Amazon. I googled all of the platforms and added “and plagiarism” just to see what came up. There are many examples of writers’ work being plagiarized over years and nothing has been done about it. It’s incredibly worrisome.
And to be honest, I’m considering putting up some free samples on my blog here because no one has read my stuff yet. And I’m getting a project ready for publishing soon. But cases like I’ve covered are making me question that decision.
The problem of accountability is definitely keeping the publishing platforms of exacting any kind of plagiarism catching. They seem to not be taking any responsibility. But considering that opens up more cans with way more worms than I want to think about.
I’m in a similar position myself – I have an almost complete project, which I’d like to get advice on, but don’t want to risk it all being for nothing. It’s unlikely, but there’s always the risk of being that 0.001%.
At the same time, if a newspaper or traditional publisher stole content from another source and passed if off as their own, there would be well-publicised legal action. If nothing has been done by plagiarism victims in the past, I assume it’s because the costs far outweigh the potential of a fair resolution, and compensation, and they just don’t think it’s worth it – which is very sad, considering the amount of time, heart and effort that goes into writing a novel.
If there was some precedent for an online publisher being culpable, and having a responsibility to support wronged writers who wanted to sue, that might encourage them to take prevention measures more seriously, and might help to scare any would-be thieves off.
And you’ve stated exactly why there hasn’t been a use of software to catch the plagiarizing. The sad thing is, the cost to use such a software (which I can’t believe they can’t get a license from the services that provide it to the universities) can’t be so much that they can’t try to protect their writers. What does that say about how they value the indie writers?
Someone untrustworthy could also steal work that they had to pay for.
Of course. Plagiarism is everywhere. In the case of Jordin Williams, this person stole from two traditionally published New Adult writers directly from their books as well as from fan fiction posted for free online. When a person posts written work online for free, it makes it even easier for plagiarists to find. It’s just something that those who want to do it should be aware of, myself included.
May no one ever mess with your stuff!
Having seen lots of plagiarizing as a teacher, it is something I do fear. I’m still trying to figure out how to get samples of my writing out there for people to try. Thank you for your wish!
The pros here FAR outweigh the cons. You may not be collecting a physical paycheck, but if you handle it right, by putting your work up for ‘free’ you’re gaining a fanbase, even if it is a small one, you get the experience of actually finishing something and releasing it into the wild instead of endlessly tinkering with drafts, you’ll get valuable feedback on your style, you may network and strike up friendships with other writers who might be able to help you out at some crucial point …
If you’re missing out on these valuable experiences and tools because you’re afraid someone’s going to steal your work, then you’re being foolish — as well as arrogant that you’re producing 24 karat gold bars worth carting off instead of mostly lead with a few traces of more precious metals hidden inside.
If anyone’s calling themselves a writer and fearing that their ability to output story is in any way finite and not to be ‘squandered’, they might want to reconsider that line of work as a whole, because odds are they’re going to have to produce a lot of unpaid material to hone skills and learn the craft before it pays off.
Thank you for your point of view. In now way do I feel like my words are gold. I think the overall message I should have ended with is to be aware of those who troll free writing to take from. It’s up to the writer to be vigilant if someone does take parts of it. And that has been proven to happen whether or not the writing is gold.
I’m still in the beginning stages of figuring out how free can be used and useful. You state the biggest pro of all, which is exposure and possible support. You’re right that it shouldn’t be fear. However, it should be awareness.
Sorry if that came across in any way as a personal slam.
A writer can’t live in fear of this sort of thing, nor do they need to work themselves into a state of paranoia, constantly searching for appropriations or knock-offs. All that’s doing is sucking time and energy away from writing more material.
I’ve known a few people over the years in various artistic disciplines who were too concerned about this sort of thing, and to a one, it was a very negative trait that hampered their ability to present their work without developing a nervous tic each time — and that was before the age of Google and the ability to ‘check’. It’s a downward, accelerating spiral.
Where this gets topic gets under my skin is that the people who are overprotective of their work and seem to have an attorney already on speed dial have made it so that editors / publishers are very reluctant to even look at submissions because of the legal ramifications — and now, with social media, a single well-connected disgruntled individual can mount a fairly effective smear campaign. That hampers ALL writers, regardless of their stance of protectiveness.
I didn’t take it personally at all. There are multiple viewpoints to offering written works for free, and I want to explore all of them. I had not heard that it was hampering publishing professionals. A simple NDA agreement between a writer and them should suffice – anyone who doesn’t understand that is uninformed.
Again, I think we’re agreeing about the responsibility of how “free” is used rests on the authors.
And I thank you for your encouragement to use free – it’s given me lots to think about and to consider when getting my stuff out there.