Copyright Laws

I have recently learned about the copyright laws and what is considered ‘published’. Appearantly, if I were to submit Wayback or Predictable World, publishers do not like it if part or all of the material has ever been ‘publicly published’. Putting the material on a website is considered being public. So, I have had to remove all of my excerpts/snippets so that someday I can say, yes but only for 4 days.