This article is from the misc.writing Writing FAQ, by Wendy Chatley Green wcgreen@cris.com with numerous contributions by others.
If you post a piece of writing to a public
electronic bulletin-board or discussion group (USENET,
GEnie, FIDOnet, et al.), or mail it to a
generally-accessible mailing list (sf-lovers), you have
published it. This means that you cannot sell "first
rights" to that manuscript to a magazine, anthology, et
cetera. Furthermore, most publishers won't buy secondary
rights to a piece that has been published on an electronic
network. (Sending E-mail copies of a manuscript out to a
few friends and reviewers probably doesn't constitute
"publication", but posting definitely does.)
 
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