Publishing online or not?

[Demos Mirak]

I have always liked to imagine worlds, be they Sci-Fi or fantasy, filled with stories. Lately, I have been trying to get those words on paper. As it turns out, I'm not good at writing big story-lines. I like to write about the back stories of things, the extra info on tools used, the discovery of technological, medical and/or magical advances, the creation of the world where the stories take place, and this is exactly what I did whenever I got stuck on the main story, to the point where the background was bigger than the main story. I simply like crafting worlds. Sadly, all this background info isn't really good material for being published in book form.

This gave me the following idea; 'What if I published all this on a website, with a tab for general world info, a tab about items, a tab about the rules, a tab with the personal stories? Would that work?' Upon browsing this forum, I read that anything published online, cannot be published in books as well. This makes sense, who would pay for something free, but since a big part of the stories about the world would be online, wouldn't that mean that everything else would also be unpublishable? Aside from all that, I'm also about to head off to the university, doing Medical (if I get accepted, but I have good hopes for it), so money won't exactly available in great amounts. I know that webhosting can be very cheap, a handful of Euros a month (I am Dutch), but I am still hesitant. Can you guys/girls help me out a bit?

[Aminar]

You're a little off on the anything published online thing, it's been done.

That said, if your passion is worldbuilding about the only way I can think to make it marketable without putting stories in is to make it an RPG...  Make it something for people to put stories in.

[Demos Mirak]

You're probably right about me being off about publishing, I honestly don't know that much about it.

And how would that story making for RPG's exactly work? Should I post it somewhere in one big, sort of organized heap?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

You're a little off on the anything published online thing, it's been done.

Occasionally. Very much not the way to bet. 

[Quantus]

You're probably right about me being off about publishing, I honestly don't know that much about it.

And how would that story making for RPG's exactly work? Should I post it somewhere in one big, sort of organized heap?

If you mostly are interested in getting it out there rather than nessesarily cashing in on it, check out http://www.obsidianportal.com/  Its primary intension is for RPGs, but it is basically a community for people to organize and publish Settings and other background related information like you describe.  And it doesnt actually have to be published if you dont want it to be, but Im not sure how much of that you can use with the free membership, you may have to sign up. 

Personally I usually just use Wikispaces to organize my world-building efforts in a basic wiki format, but Obsidian portal has a full wiki plus decent tools for other elements that could be useful (maps, character sheets, artwork, etc)

[Aminar]

You're probably right about me being off about publishing, I honestly don't know that much about it.

And how would that story making for RPG's exactly work? Should I post it somewhere in one big, sort of organized heap?

They are right, not a way to bet, but good work can get you noticed, and if it's all worldbuilding and no story(discounting backstory) I doubt much will be affected.

As to how to make an RPG setting.
I would do it similar to my notes.
These are split into
History:What happened in the past of the setting.
Groups of People:  Countries, cities, cultures, subcultures, religion, etc...
Beastiary:  Anything abnormal that isn't intelligent, or is but isn't in the above section.  Can be Fairies, Aliens, Dinosaurs, what have you.
Possible conflicts-The storylines that could take place in your world.  The starts of stories.
Magic/Tech/Phlebotinum-Anything about your world that operates different from ours.

When making an RPG providing stats for a system is a good idea.  There's a number of free systems you can use, I recommend Fatecore.  It's the next step above the Dresden RPG and has great catch all rules for any genre.  If you want a harder system, it will be more work to explain things.

Now, this is my organization system, and only functions because of how my brain operates.  You may or may not have/want to change some of the organization.

[Demos Mirak]

It all sounds interesting and thanks for the information. I've got a big vacation coming up, during which I will be in Italy with the family, so I will have time to write. I'm probably going to first set up the world, probably in a manner similar to yours, Aminar, when that's done, I will either post a link to it somewhere and let you guys loose on it, if you want, or maybe I will try to fill it up with my own stories.

[Wordmaker]

It really all depends on what it is you want to do.

Do you want to write a novel for publication and mass-consumption? If so, keep most of your background information private as you can use it to make sure your setting feels real and fleshed-out. Also, while it's possible for information published for free online to make it into a traditionally-published book, it's not common and is a bit of a risk.

Do you want to write and produce a roleplaying game for publication and mass-consumption? If so, again, keep most of your background information private because you won't want to give away too much material that could have a place in the game.