Some people are saying that if you post your novel online, you give up first electronic rights--yadda, yadda, yadda--and thus serious publishers won't give your work a second look if you want to publish. Yes, these people are right, but only if you're serious about this.
I'm primarily a short fiction writer when I am writing. I am serious about that (yes, I do submit to publishers, and yes, I have rejection slips to prove it) so I don't post those works online.
Writing a novel for Nanowrimo, however, is one of those fun, seat-of-your-pants, kind of things for me so I don't really care if everyone and their mother reads my efforts. I am not seeking publication for these works (if I were, they wouldn't be online). My primary motivation for putting this stuff online, as I've mentioned elsewhere before, is that I want to let people know that writing a novel in a month can be done--even if your main job isn't full-time author. I'm a student who works insane hours in lab. Many other people in my shoes can barely manage enough free time to make it to the beer parties at the end of the week. Besides, isn't it annoying when you finally find a Nano novel but then realize that the author has only put up an excerpt?
