Sharing Personal Poems and Publishing: A Question

[deryk]

Can sharing a poem on an on-line forum prevent that poem from being published at a later date/incarnation? Is there a universal answer to this, or is it up to the individual publisher?

[moonbird]

For me it has never been a problem, but I've only published in a few smaller magazines.

[deryk]

Thank you so much. That's my current goal, so that's perfect.

[JCamilo]

Unless the forum is like a jerk and found a way to have the possession of your poem there is no problem. Publishers do not exactly look what is new, but what is legal free.

[deryk]

Understandably so, that was part of my concern as well.

[JCamilo]

Plus, it must be in the contract what kind of media your work is supported and in which territory (or language). If the contract does not express that all media, all language, etc, you can easily move to another medium. As if a contract does not express e-books, you can seek another house to publish it.

[deryk]

I see. I'm only interested in publishing short content in small hard print outlets, so I should be fine in pretty much any case.