Should You Share Your Business Ideas With Your Blog Readers? | Blogging | Writing Forum

These days it's almost inevitable that some aspect of your business will be online. And that leaves you open to thieves -- from content thieves to those who steal your ideas because they can't come up with their own. For things like Web copy and general blog content, there's not much you can do to prevent it. You have to go after them after the fact. 

But what about your business ideas and plans? Should you share those with your readers? 

I do. Every year I share my big goals and resolutions. And I generally post at least one follow-up in the summer to share progress and new goals added to the list. 

But sometimes some of those plans have to be scrapped because a reader of the blog sees the ideas (some of which are fairly unique in the niche) and they immediately run with it, making it look as though I'm copying them if I proceed. And that infuriates me (especially because it's the same couple of people who continually pull this crap -- newsflash: imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery in this business). I've had people swipe branding ideas, take unique ideas and tools on this site and turn them into e-books, courses, webinars, etc. to try to profit off of them, and mimic so many business ideas I mention that I have to wonder if they can even think for themselves. 

I was talking to another colleague about the issue privately this week when we discovered one such instance of someone taking a unique tool here and trying to sell it in another format. And I mentioned that I felt like maybe I just shouldn't share my business ideas and plans with readers anymore. 

But I don't know if I could take that route. In general, I think the benefits outweigh the risks, even if there are a few people out there who act like schmucks. It gives me feedback on some of those ideas before I sink a lot of time into them, and my hope when I share this information is that it also gets other readers thinking about their plans. 

What about you? Do people tend to swipe your ideas if you share them on your blog? What, if anything, do you do about it? Do you like it when bloggers or other freelance writers share their plans because you find inspiration in it somehow? Or do you think it's a better idea to protect those ideas, at least until projects are publicly launched?

For now I'll probably stick to the status quo. I'll share my general goals and some project ideas. But my biggest project ideas -- especially those I know I won't be able to launch right away -- will continue to be shared only with my 2 or 3 most trusted colleagues. 

Jenn

I've been in touch with them over similar issues in the past, but they don't seem to learn. 

And no. Ideas can't be copyrighted. But it's not just an idea either (why I keep the bigger ideas private). It often involves taking something already developed for this site or another one I run, tweaking it and acting like it's their own. That's a very different animal. It's a derivative work, and copyright infringement. 

And even if an idea itself isn't copyrighted, you have to be quite an ass to go to colleague's sites and go out of your way to steal their ideas because you have none of your own. That would be like someone coming to me for feedback on an idea, website, etc. (which happens often enough) and me saying "hey, there's an idea. I think I'll swoop in and do it first to screw them over." It's unethical, and goes to show you shouldn't be trusted. That's a stupid way to act in this day and age when open communication is so highly valued. Trust is valued at a premium, and someone has to have very little self respect (nonetheless respect for others) to sacrifice their own image by acting in that way. That said, it's nothing new, especially in this niche. It happens a lot. 

As for not sharing ideas until the product is completed, that doesn't make sense all the time. If the idea is to get feedback before you launch something, that feedback is most valuable before you dig in (rather than after investing time and money into development only to have to make extensive changes). And I find it sad that people can't talk openly with colleagues without these things happening. It's just a case for more private networking, which unfortunately means a lot of people can be left out of potentially interesting conversations to them. 

On the plus side, the people who do steal things from web copy to colleagues' ideas generally don't make much of them. If they can't come up with their own ideas, they often can't market the ideas they swipe anyway. They don't build the same followings. They generally don't make much money from it. It's more an annoyance than anything (not only speaking for myself, but based on what I hear from other colleagues when similar things happen to them). The larger problem is when the behavior leads to half-assed products being released just to one-up someone, which in turn can damage the efforts of the person who's project was swiped. 

lol "scummy" -- Even your insults sound almost nice Cathy. So many other words come to mind….

And I complain about those BS guest posts too Cathy. So you're not alone. They're a real problem. Out of curiosity, what niche do they tend to be in? The ones that come to me tend to be in the online learning niche.

You'll hear most of the ideas anyway Cathy. I consider you one of the three writers I trust unconditionally with that stuff -- you, Ev, and Lori. That's not to say I have a reason not to trust most others. I just chat with you three most often. And these kinds of things tend to come up in those other conversations rather than on their own.

Yeah, I just ignore them. Some try to reach me three or four times before they finally give up. I figure if they can't bother doing the research to see what we allow in recent guest posts, I can't be bothered to respond. I even make it easy. They're all posted under a "guest" username. So when they find one (which they do and use as an excuse for their pitch), all they have to do is click a link and find out what we've accepted in the last several months. 

They're not new. Don't even give them the benefit of the doubt. They're SEO firms desperately trying to get links. That niche is a big one because it's a high paying Adsense niche and they figure "education" could technically apply to anything. Many other niches are similar. They're not usually even the site owners reaching out to you. If the niche sounds off, or if they address you by your site name or "webmaster" or something like that, I'd just ignore them. 

I was talking to Lori about the recent theft crap. Monday when I'm dealing w/ the newer guy, I'll give you the summarized version. We'll see if he takes down my work before then. He's stealing every post from the feed, in full. And those are the kinds of creeps I go after pretty hard.

The saddest part of it is that I invest a lot of time sharing information and ideas publicly to help newer writers. But that help is a far cry from saying "here, steal this and use it exactly as-is." I try to help them figure out their own specialties, copy, marketing tools, etc. And I'm even happy to provide templates of sorts. But when they turn into copycats or worse, they blatantly steal my blog posts -- well, then they're beyond hope. For now I'm just ignoring some of it and going after others. I have to turn my attention more to the ones outright stealing the blog content. More of a direct impact on me than anything else atm. And the guy Lori and I came across last week was swiping from quite a few blogs in the niche (basically publishing several entire blogs -- not snippets -- under a single domain name). 

With the few things I do share before launch, I don't usually go into much detail. They just take what they can from it, run with it, and usually do it so half-assed that it sets a bad precedent. In some cases I'd just launch anyway and blow them out of the water with something well-done. In other cases, they seem to tarnish the idea so much that it's not even worth considering anymore. 

My biggest one is obviously the nonfiction book, which is taking a very long time b/c I want to do it right instead of rushing it out to publication. At least with that, I've been promoting the concepts for years, those issues aren't being discussed in that way anywhere else in the niche, and if someone went after it, I technically have a trademark on the term I coined given that I've been using it in business (a blog, e-book releases under the brand name, etc.). So in that case they wouldn't stop me, and I'd go after them if they did anything to screw with the branding. Fortunately that hasn't been an issue though. 

It looks like that guy used to possibly write his own material, and now it's just a splog. I don't know why he thinks he can get away with it. I reported him to Twitter as well (as I think you did too), given that he's mostly there promoting stolen content to monetize it. I can't do much else until I finish up my work today. But then I'll be in touch with the ad networks. From what I can see, the search engines already aren't indexing much there so he's a known offender (at least with Google). And he's hosting in the US, so I'm going to be in touch with his host as well demanding a takedown of all content stolen from AFW. I'll send you the letter if you'd like to copy and submit with your own stolen content shortly after. Several takedown notices at once will be more likely to get a response from them.