I've just got an email inviting me to join a novel website.

I experienced it once and this is the second time.

I bet the writers who write online experienced this or will experience this. That's why I came up with the idea to write about this topic to be information to the new online writers.

Talking about my experience.

When I was using a fiction web, I got a message from a person, not my follower, that they found my work was good, so they invited me to join their web by saying I would get a big opportunity because on that web there were many readers.

Because at that time, I was a frog in the well. I believed the sender might read my story and liked my story that was why they invited me to join their website. I joined without waiting.

I was very glad because I saw my stories got a lot of traffic. I thought I would be famous so I updated everyday. Then the website sent a kind of robot message to me that if I was interested in it, I could become their contracted writer.

Honestly, I really wanted to because I could get paid but they demanded my story to have at least fifty thousand words, and my story was short, so I could not apply for the contract yet.

I tried hard to write to make my story length match with their criteria.

I told my sibling and she advised me to search for information before I applied for the contract. I followed her advice. I searched about that site, and especially on the forum of writers who wrote on that site. I found a lot of negative comments especially related to piracy. So I slowed down my writing and kept follow up the information.

Then my story was stolen.

I contacted that site asking I should manage this matter myself or the site could help me. They did not reply to me.

I remembered I had contacted them many times, they replied to all my messages, but when I asked about the piracy, they did not respond.

It reminded me of the forum of the writers - what they had met was what I was meeting.

Because of that issue, I became mature. I don't believe in anyone easily, not only in email but also in person.

What had happened is still in my head; therefore, when I saw their mail, I was reminded about it and I ignored the mail.

If it is you, should you or shouldn't you?

Well, I don't say you should or should not, but I just want to give you some advices based on my experience and knowledge:

1. if a site is capable enough, they will not send people to other sites to pull those sites' customers.

2. if a site just takes care about the writers who are their contracted writers, they are not truthful enough for the writers.

3. if a site invites you by saying they have a lot of readers, they can help you to be famous or be rich, they are making an advertisement - you have to remember that thing on the advertisement cannot be believed one hundred percent.

Whether you decide to join or not, you should:

- gather information about that sites both positive and negative then taking all those informations to think carefully

- read their term of use, policy, guideline and privacy conditions carefully and inspect even a single word

- in case you decide to join, you should do it slowly (I mean publish your story on the site) and you should not publish your best story.

This is what I want to tell you.

I hope this will be useful information for the online newbie writer. I hope all the writers are safe, especially from piracy and con-business people.

Thanks for reading.

See you next article.