Beware of Selling Your Rights

« « Controlling the Reader | Thriller books - Detective and exciting » »

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

Normal 0

Most creative writers are so eager to sell their work that they don’t stop to consider what rights they are selling. The word “Rights” indicates how the buyer can use your work. “Rights” is not an indicator of how much you get paid or how you copyright your work.

· First North American Serial Rights, or FNASR, are the most common rights purchased. After the buyer publishes the story one time in North America, the author once again retains the rights to it. When selling these rights to a magazine, put “Offering First North American Serial Rights” in the top left corner of your page.

One Time Serial Rights - If you are offering the rights for simultaneous submissions, put “One Time Serial Rights” in the top, left corner. This means the first magazine that buys your work can publish it only one time.

Second Serial Rights - This is what you will be offering if you have previously sold your work. The can publish your work one time.

All Rights - If you are developing a course for a school or some such thing, no big deal; but normally you would shudder at the sight of these rights. It means you are signing away “all rights” to whoever bought your work. You may never sell the work again, publish it, copy it, download it, or transfer it. Rights are gone - zero, kaput.

Work for Hire - Shiver at the sight of this one, too. Work for Hire exists only two ways: An employer pays you a wage and you create the document at work (and he owns the rights) or you sell your rights as an independent contractor.

Non-Exclusive Rights is another undesirable. The original buyer can continue using your work and reproducing it in syndication without sharing profits with you, but the rights will revert back to you after one year (and you can sell it again).

Exclusive Rights - If you sign away these rights, you just gave the farm away. Places like Associated Content assume full rights over articles they purchase. You won’t be able to use that story or article again. It’s gone. Ker-plunk! Down the commode.

· One-time rights - You can sell one time rights simultaneously to as many people as you want. Columnists usually use this right when they sell to various markets.

As you can see, there is only the difference of a hair’s breadth on some of these rights. Keep this article in your safe and don’t sign anything without referring to it!

There are many more types of rights as well, but this covers the most prominent ones.

Share and Enjoy: