Blogged: Published? Or Not?

Thoughts
from Peggy Duffy

I consider a blog to be published as a general rule, and I think many publications do as well. It's publicly accessible. You should read guidelines carefully. If they say they don't accept previously published work, then you should not submit to those pubs. If they say they accept previously published work, you need to state where and when the piece appeared previously. There is honor among writers. And the last thing you want to do is irk an editor.

I personally would take off my blog anything I planned to submit and/or anything accepted. Once the poem appears in print, you can link the publication site to your blog, much more prestigious anyway that someone has chosen your poem for publication.

As to 'written guidelines', this came off Wikipedia, but quotes US Copyright legislation. Considering the source, it may or may not be 100% accurate, but should be easy enough to look up.

See especially (1). In the United States, publication is defined as: the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.

To perform or display a work "publicly" means –

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or

(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times. (—17 USC 101)

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