I’m breaking into the freelance writing field and have some questions for anybody knowledgeable in the biz:
**1) What does the Writer’s Market mean when it says that ** Parade “buys one-time, all rights.” Is the comma meant to be read as an and or an or? Does Parade buy one-time and all rights or one-time or all rights? I’m assuming it’s an or since one-time rights would be inclusive of all rights, right? Similarly, The Sun’s purchase of “first, one-time rights” is meant to be read as their buying first or one-time rights, right?
2) What good do your retained publishing rights do you? I understand that if a magazine buys just first-time rights to your story, you still own the rights to it and the ability to subsequently sell it word-for-word elsewhere – but who else wants it? It’s my impression that every big-time publication buys no less than first-time rights so therefore won’t touch something that’s been printed elsewhere. Sure, you still have the rights to it, but what good are they if no one else wants to buy the story?
3) At what point is a work changed enough from its original form to warrant reselling as an original work? Say a newspaper has bought and published your 650-word feature article, as well as all rights to it. The original piece before you edited it to fit the paper’s needs is 2,200 words long, so the full version is obviously quite a bit more robust than the pared down one. Can the full version be sold elsewhere as an original work? While it’s essentially the same story, it has a different lead, more interviews, and a slightly different approach to its telling.
4) At what point can you back out of an offer to publish your work and still look good? I’ve got an article that was accepted by a newspaper and slated to run a scant two days later. Then it got bumped a week. Then another week. Then another. At this point, it’s obvious that I’m no more than filler insurance to the editor – I’ll get published only when he has a hole he can’t otherwise fill. It’s an awesome story and I feel confident I could successfully pitch it elsewhere; moreover, at this point in my career, publication is more important to me than payment. So, while I believe I’m on firm legal footing to yank the story and peddle it to someone else (the paper pays on publication, so they haven’t bought their first-time rights yet, right?), I don’t want to piss off the editor who I might turn to in the future. What’s the etiquette here?
My bona fides: I have been a publishing executive for going on 15 years now. I have worked on newspapers, magazines, books, web pubs, etc. I am on the business side mainly with some editorial experience. I have both hired and been a free lancer over the years.
You may kiss my ring.
To wit:
I have always understood that ‘one time, all rights’ means that they intend to buy all rights to your work (print, broadcast, web, etc) for one time usage.
Retained publishing rights may have significant downstream value. Suppose you write an article on widgets and their application for sending men to the moon. The New York Times publishes it once and they’re done with it. If you retain the rights then you can expand it into a book, a lesson guide, a series of speeches, or even use the same sort of info and basic research for other articles on the same subject. Always retain your rights if possible. Don’t let someone like me screw you over. Because I’ll try.
I’d say you’d need to rewrite portions that appeared previously. No one (except some boutique pubs) is going to want to run something that’s previously appeared in print. Take what you can of the original article that did NOT appear and take that as your basis to write a longer piece. Again, do not ever use the same language in another pub. Everything that appeared previously will need to be re-written.
You can back out at any time. When someone offers to run a piece you’ve written free lance it won’t be run until you sign a contract for it (or it shouldn’t, at least…be warned). However, if you submit a piece to an editor and he’s considering it you, by custom, have given him the right a first refusal on it. Don’t back out suddenly without giving him a chance to discuss it with you. So call him and talk it over. Most are reasonable.
Further note on ‘4’: If an editor marks up your piece and sends it back that means he expects to see it again and will most likely buy it at that point. Don’t go making changes based on his red ink and sell it elsewhere.
A poorly worded description; usually a magazine buy one-time rights or all rights. I’d guess they mean they buy all rights with one payment. “First, one-time” rights, however is clearly first rights for one-time use.
Best example: Larry L. King wrote an article for a magazine about a small bordello in Texas. He later expanded it into the Broadway show (and later movie) “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Since King retained rights, he was able to profit on all the other versions. If he had sold all rights, the magazine would have gotten rich and wouldn’t have had to pay him a cent.
So the answer is: you never know what rights will be valuable, so it’s best to keep as many to yourself as you can.
The full story can indeed be sold elsewhere (see above example). Sometimes you can even sell the same article to another market – providing it doesn’t compete with the first one.
Up to you. If you’re polite, you can request the article back and the editor (assuming he’s a pro, he’ll understand) probably won’t hold it against you. If he’s a jerk, then you may get blacklisted.
I don’t write for a living, but I do get a couple of newspaper/magazine articles published a year. Maybe my insights can be helpful:
Many newspaper and magazine columnists have a lucrative career of recycling their periodical work into books. Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, P.J. O’Rourke, Art Buchwald, even a certain Cecil Adams have had numerous decent-selling books that are little more than compiulations of already-published columns, so this is not a trivial consideration.
Don’t back out unless you have a specific other place you plan to peddle it. The functional difference between a “news” story and a “features” story is that “news” is timely and the story has to run within a single publishing cycle of the event being covered (The latest developments in an ongoing story, like the description of the car that Washington Beltway Snipers drove, have publishing value the day they happen and the following day when they are published, but considerably less value after the snipers have been identified, captured and prosecuted). A “features” story has the same impact three months or a year after it’s been written as it had the day it was accepted by the publisher. Your incisive article about Bauhaus design and its impact on Europe’s expanding middle class is worth publishing because it’s interesting–but sitting on the story for a couple of months won’t matter because the passage of time won’t affect the story’s value and nothing’s going to happen in the next year that will invalidate (or enhance) your premise. It is a space-filler. Accept that. It can stiill be interesting and well-written.
Regarding question number 2, What good do your retained publishing rights do you?, I certainly understand retaining as many rights as possible just as a matter of course, but your example, RealityChuck, of “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” puzzles me: Assuming the bordello and people discussed within the article are real, what’s to stop anybody from capitalizing on the bordello concept and expanding on it regardless of who holds the copyright to the original article? This isn’t a fictional Harry Potter we’re talking about here, but real people, a real place, etc.
The same goes for your widgets, Jonathan Chance: As the widgets and the moon are both real things, what’s to stop anybody from using your widget article as a launching point for their book?
Interesting point, Krokodil , about compilations of articles into books. While I don’t think I’m yet in the pantheon of oh, say Cecil and his ilk, it’s an interesting consideration.
Regarding number 3, At what point is a work changed enough from its original form to warrant reselling as an original work?, it seems we have a difference of opinion. JC, you’re saying that no part of my previously-published piece should appear in a new piece I write, right? Does it matter who holds the copyright to the original piece? That is, if I still retain the rights, is it then ok to use certain word choices or phrases from the first piece?
RC, in selling the exact same story to another market, I’d be able to do so only if I’ve retained rights beyond first publication, no? If the publishing entity kept all rights, I’m SOL, right?
On a difference of opinion (regarding re-writes) I’m approaching it from my side. I won’t buy something of which substantial parts have previously been published.
On the first point, yes Widgets and the moon are all public domain items (mostly) but due to your having previous knowledge you become the lead person and have a substantial advantage downstream.
Suppose someone liked the ‘widget’ story and wanted to prepare a movie or documentary treatment of it? The could come to you or have someone else do it but you would be in the driver’s seat.
And if they hired someone to do the new item and it closely resembled your piece you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a lawsuit. Google ‘George Harrison Subconscious Plagarism’ for an example.
Thank you for the clarification, Jonathan Chance. So as an editor, you won’t buy something of which substantial parts have previously been published? Is your stance SOP among the editing community, would you say? And how much, in your opinion, is “substantial parts?” Would you go more by exact wording of the previously-published article, or the overall feel and tone?
And while I’m not trying to pull a fast one on anybody, how would an editor know my piece has run elsewhere (assuming the first run wasn’t something with a large national profile)? Is it incumbent upon me to inform an editor that it’s run before? If so, when? In the query letter, or once the editor has expressed interest?
Obviously, as many people can write non-fiction about a particular person, place, event, or subject as they please. But expression, clarity of thought and explanation, depth of research, exclusive interviews, or sequence of action can make one piece better or more useful than another, so that they would not want to take a chance of finding a lesser writer to work on that subject or whose work they want to build on.
Obviously again, no one expects to sell a New Yorker article to another venue. But most writers work at a somewhat humbler level. Many free lancers resell pieces that went originally to one small market to another small market whose audience does not overlap.
But other markets prefer not to do this. Changing a previously published piece or rewriting it to fit into a longer or changed piece is a sensible way to go. There can be very few instances in which your original choice of words is so perfect that they cannot be changed and retain their meaning.
But you do have to have the rights. If you sold all rights then you need to write a completely differently worded piece.
Yes, you should absolutely tell an editor that a piece has been run before, in the query letter. If you don’t and the editor finds out and is displeased that will be the last piece you ever sell there and you may find your total reputation besmirched. Remember, you have nothing to sell as a freelancer except your product and your reputation.
As for Parade: if they say “One time rights / All rights” it may mean that you can negotiate between the two, with a higher initial payment for selling All rights.
First, I’d just like to say that participating in a thread on the SDMB with a bunch of literates is a breath of fresh air. Spelling, punctuation, clear exposition – it’s all there. It’s a welcome change from all those other threads around here
** Exapno Mapcase**, I wish it were that clear. The Writer’s Market text doesn’t use a slash to separate the two thoughts, though. It reads: “Buys one-time, all rights.” The book is full of this ambiguity.
So, when you pitch a story and tell the editor it’s run before, does the editor usally ask to see the piece in its previous form to compare how different it is in its new iteration? Or is it just assumed that if you’re pitching anew, it must be different this time around?
Do any of you veterans have any examples you’d share of a story you’ve successfully pitched twice? While the actual text of the two would be trés cool (assuming you still have the copyright), a discussion of how they compared and differed, and how and where you pitched them would be welcome, too.
Is it pretty much a given that once your story has made it big – i.e. published in Time, the New Yorker, or some such – that it’s never going to run anywhere else? If so, does it make sense to work your way up to the biggies by pitching smaller markets first?
Yes, that’s why I didn’t go to the book but googled Parade magazine guidelines. Writer’s Market is a place to start, but you’re always better off double-checking what it says.
Yep. Remember, the goal of WM isn’t to actually help you…it’s to make money for the publisher. Clarity counts…but only so far.
STARK, I’m not an editor. I’m a publisher type. I run the business side and give orders to editors from time to time.
It’s true that I don’t like my pubs to run previously appeared pieces. Some people may not care…I do. I certainly wouldn’t buy something that was word for word or even included substantial word for word sections. Put in the time for a rewrite. I’d want a fresh angle anyway.
You should also watch your contracts for ‘first appearance’ language. Some firms will insist that, while you retain rights to your work, they’ll only buy it for it’s first time in print. Heads up.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by STARK *
The same goes for your widgets, Jonathan Chance: As the widgets and the moon are both real things, what’s to stop anybody from using your widget article as a launching point for their book?
[QUOTE]
Common sense says nothing stops them, but the case law defies common sense. I’m telling this from memory, so some facts may be mauled: Frank McCourt co-wrote A Couple a Blaguards, a play that was unsuccessful and autobiographical (He wrote it with his brother Malachy). He sold all rights to this play.
Subsequently, he wrote two more autobiographical books, Angela’s Ashes and 'Tis. Although he was more protective of the rights to these later works, they covered some of the same ground as Blaguards. The owners of Blaguards sued, claiming ownership of the subsequent works based on the original contract.
Not sure how this was resolved, but later works that draw on earlier works can be messy.
Is it pretty much a given that once your story has made it big – i.e. published in Time, the New Yorker, or some such – that no other pub will ever run your story? If so, is it a better business model to work your way up to the biggies by pitching smaller markets first?
Any examples you’d share of a story you’ve successfully pitched twice? Either the actual text of the two (assuming you still have the copyright) or links to them would be great. Also, a discussion of how they compared and differed, and how and where you pitched them would be welcome.
What websites do you recommend for more information? While I appreciate the help all you freelancers have offered, I realize the SDMB proabably isn’t the best place to continue my ceaseless questioning. Do you know of any good online resources devoted to freelancing, especialy those with message boards?
Time doesn’t buy from freelancers and your chances of cracking The New Yorker as a newbie are about the same as being hit by a meteorite.
Unless you are one in a million and live in New York City and have connections and are the world’s top expert on your subject, I’m afraid that you will have to start at the bottom and work your way up like the rest of us mortals.
The most important organization in the field is ASJA - the American Society of Journalists and Authors. www.asja.org
You can’t join until you have some credits, but it’s a good website to poke around on. The Writers Resources link has some good info in it.
The National Writers Union is another group that provides basic info about the field. www.nwu.org
