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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3094
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3094
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'd be very wary of trying to create buzz and a community around an unsold novel.

Here are possible issues I see:

- First and foremost: you can run into copyright problems if it is not plainly clear that you are the author of your creations. For example, if anybody could edit the entries, your copyright over the entries might be severely weakened.
- Even if your own copyright is established, many of the same issues with [fan fiction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction) likely apply. 
  - Letting people play around with your ideas - particularly in a forum you're involved in and implicitly approve of - can open you to claims that you've used others' ideas without credit and compensation. 
  - Letting people use your material in ways that may reflect poorly on your novel would make your novel very unattractive to publishers.
  - Lack of care enforcing your copyright could conceivably lead to you losing it. This would have to be pretty extreme - but then, you're setting this up as kind of a joint creation.
- Bear in mind that your novel may go through substantial changes and revisions during editing and publishing. Do you really want to commit publicly to so much of your setting's detail before the novel's even finished?

Along with all this, though, I'd say if a wiki site sounds cool to you - then it'd probably make for great promotion _later on_, when you'll have the book ready and the publisher signed.

And if you think it'd be cool _right now_ - not to speak of building up a fan-base, which is **very** desirable - why not do something similar, but less inherently tied to your work-in-progress? You could even use a lot of the same ideas - with twists, and name-changes, and room for other people to put in developments you have no intention of putting in your novel. That'd _still_ get you a community of people interested in the kind of thing you're doing - and they'd know you as the site's founder. And you wouldn't be risking control over the creations you intend to sell elsewhere.

Good luck to ye :D

Original score: 4