Does posting stories for critique count as being published?

[FlashesInTheDark]

I know this may seem like a ridiculous question, but I have stories that I'd love to post on the board for critique, but I'm afraid doing so would mean I could only market them as "reprints." (Since they've already been publicly posted.) Anyone have any experience with this, or some advice?

[caseyquinn]

As long as where you post them requires users to be logged in to view the area they are not considered published. If you are unsure, log out. If you can see the area you are about to post in, then it would be considered published.

[FlashesInTheDark]

Thanks for the tip Casey!

[Grillmeat]

I'm not sure on this but it seems to me that if you have put something out there in a forum marked for crits then that would not count as being published since the idea is that everyone looking at it is going to be helping you polish it up for actual "publication".

[Ed]

As Casey says, the vast majority of editors are happy to accept a story that has been posted for critique on a closed forum, meaning that it can only be viewed by people after entering a password.

If it's on an open section of the forum, one that can be viewed without signing-in, then it can also be seen by search engine bots, so when an editor takes a sample of text and puts it into a search engine they'll find it already 'published'.

Some places still consider anything online as not having been published - only printed material is credited for the purpose of filtering submissions, but they're getting rarer as time goes by. Most publishers are seeking to avoid plagiarism.