by
Kathryn Page Camp
In last week’s
blog, Louis Martinez encouraged writers to find markets for their short
stories. Some of the best markets out there are print magazines and ezines. And
as Louis noted, what rights you sell them determines what you can and cannot do
with that same content in the future. So this week and next I’ll talk about
what those rights are.*
Since I don’t want
to have to use “print magazine or ezine” and “story, article, or poem”
repeatedly, I’m going to do the lawyer thing. When used in these posts, the
words magazine, publication, and periodical include both print magazines and
ezines. References to story, piece, or item include stories, articles, poems,
and any other type of work that can be submitted to a magazine.
All
Rights
Some periodicals,
such as Highlights for Children, buy
all rights. That means the magazine has complete control over what happens to
the story you submitted. Essentially, the publication now owns the piece, and
you are not allowed to resell it. You don’t even have the right to post it on
your own website without the magazine’s permission.
Selling all rights
does not usually prohibit you from writing another story on the same topic (but
read your contract). However, the new piece cannot be merely a revision but must
have a fresh approach. In other words (pun intended), you may have to start all
over again.
Highlights
pays
well and is a prestigious name to have among your credits, so some writers are
happy to sell it all rights. That’s your choice, but it should be a deliberate
one.
First
Rights, or First North American Rights
Most magazines buy
first rights. That’s the right to be the first to publish the story. Similarly,
first North American rights give the publication the right to be the first
publisher in North America. Once the magazine has published the piece, however,
control reverts to you and you are free to post it on your website, include it
in a compilation, or resell it.
Reprint
or Second Rights
The biggest
advantage of first rights is second rights—also called reprint rights. Once the
first rights holder has published your story, you can resell it as many times
as you want. Reprint rights don’t usually pay as well as first rights, and some
magazines won’t buy reprints at all. But when a magazine does buy reprint
rights, it is paying for work you already did, so any size check is good. And
second rights aren’t limited to the second time you publish the item—they also
cover the third sale, and the fourth, and so on.
Since you can only
sell first rights once, subsequent submissions should explain where and when
the story previously appeared. You should also wait until the item is actually
published by the first rights holder before submitting it elsewhere. This ensures
that the second rights holder doesn’t publish it first by mistake.
I’ll cover several
other types of rights in next week’s post.
__________
* The two posts in this series are taken, with
modifications, from pages 166–170 of Writers
in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal by Kathryn Page Camp and are used
by permission from me to me.
__________
Kathryn Page Camp
is a licensed attorney and full-time writer who writes adult non-fiction as
Kathryn Page Camp and middle-grade fiction as Kaye Page. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month
Selection for April 2014, and her first middle-grade historical novel, Desert Jewels, was released earlier this
month. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.
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