Would you ever post a trunked novel on the web?

Never in a million years.

If you are really sure that you don't want to let it go, than yeah you should to it. BUT, what if you decide that you're in love with the story still and someone who reads it takes your idea, fixes it up, query it, gets representation, gets published and yada yada yada. How would you feel? I don't think you'd be happy, but if this is what you want to go for it. Like the person above me said, I wouldn't do it a million years.

Umm...I don't know if that's such a good idea. Maybe posting a few chapters and calling it a draft might be okay? If you just want to gauge reaction to your work.

Why don't you try to get it e-published instead? The barriers to entry are less formidable than traditional publishing. That's not to say, of course, just because you want to get e-published you will be, since E-Pubs have standards and criteria they work against too. But maybe that avenue would work better for you at this time? Especially if the financial rewards are not a concern.

Once you put something on the internet, it's there for.ev.er. Yeah, you can delete it. Chances are it still exists in a cache somewhere. Maybe that doesn't matter-- unless you do become a successful writer someday and fans want to comb the internet looking for you. Or an agent Googles you before accepting a query. Then it might be really embarrassing to have what is not your best work floating around.

~*Kate*~ said:

Once you put something on the internet, it's there for.ev.er. Yeah, you can delete it. Chances are it still exists in a cache somewhere. Maybe that doesn't matter-- unless you do become a successful writer someday and fans want to comb the internet looking for you. Or an agent Googles you before accepting a query. Then it might be really embarrassing to have what is not your best work floating around.

Click to expand...

This.

No. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I have plans for that trunked novel.

There are cases where this has been done with good results. Keith Brooke was and is a UK SF writer who had three novels out in the 1980s. He then lost his publishing deal and novel four, which he considered his best to date, he couldn't sell. So he put it online as careware - download the book and give some money to charity. Earlier this decade, Cosmos Books in the USA published the novel, along with the three earlier ones and a new short-story collection. It did help that Keith had kept active in the genre with his short fiction, by running the (now-defunct but still archived) website Infinity Plus and (as Nick Gifford) writing YA horror novels, so he hadn't disappeared off people's radar screens.

But generally, no - web publishing is the same as self-publishing. If it's something like a collection or a novella, well maybe. But it's something I'd rather not do with a novel, which I could hopefully sell to a publisher at some point.

No no no no no no.

A thousand times, no!