Question concerning Previosly "Published" work

[DanielBenoit]

Okay, I was wondering, that since almost no literary journals accept previously "published" (or posted) work, and rightly so; is there a way in which I can remove a work from my blog or website, in a way that it's prior existence will not appear on search engines of Google Alerts?

[Jozanny]

Okay, I was wondering, that since almost no literary journals accept previously "published" (or posted) work, and rightly so; is there a way in which I can remove a work from my blog or website, in a way that it's prior existence will not appear on search engines of Google Alerts?

That I don't know, sadly, as much as I try to keep pace with digital copyright law, but I think Google will cite a link to removed content as broken--not that I am an expert on search engine archival ability.

However, and I am straying into muddy waters here, but--blog posts do not necessarily destroy first printing rights if you are going to resubmit said post as an essay, an article, or something else. Blogs are quick summaries, usually (maybe Dick Polman's work is a minor exception, cf American Debate) and good writers know how to rework these for other formats.

Take my posts here. They are copyrighted by Google, as the moderators informed me last year, but the ideas in them I can use freely as a premise to an article, or essay thesis. Ideas are not copyrighted, they cannot be, though I do not want to stray into intellectual property law...:eek2:

PS: You could also tell an editor in your cover letter that portions of your piece appeared in your blog, and provide he, or she, with the link. I always come clean Daniel. I'd rather get rejected than blackballed ;) (And yes, even today, authors get censured if they get caught being bad. One poet published the same poem in two different publications without attribution, and said individual doesn't get read in the small presses anymore; it matters.)