Rights: A Special Report (Part II)

In part I of this article, some of the rights that writer's can sell to a publisher were discussed. This week, we will continue that discussion by discussing some more types including all rights and work for hire.

One-time Rights- Selling one-time rights to a publication means that publication has the right to publish your piece only one time.

Anthology Rights- When a publication purchases anthology rights, they have the right to purchase your piece in an anthology or collection of works.

Exclusive vs. Nonexclusive Rights- In a contract, when a publisher asks for an exclusive right to your work, that means it cannot appear anywhere else while they are publishing it. There is usually a time limit involved such as one month, three months. After the time has passed, you are free to publish your material elsewhere. A nonexclusive right means that you can sell the same article to more than one publisher, and they can both appear simultaneously. Of course, you can sell only first rights to one of them, and reprint rights to the other.

Work for Hire- This is when you write something as part of your employment for a company. For example, you write a brochure for your boss. You can claim no copyright and no rights for the material. Furthermore, if you rewrite the article afterward for another publication, you might be infringing on the company's copyright if the two articles are the same. Avoid this type of agreement.

All rights- When a publisher purchases all rights from you, it means just that. You are selling all rights to your work. You can never resell this article. In some cases, you might not even get a byline. However, in recent months, publishers that regularly purchase all rights have begun to give writer's bylines and permission to include material on their writer's personal website as a clip. Selling all rights is still not the best for the writer, but it is something to look at when the publisher gives bylines and website portfolio permission. Material can always be rewritten to be sold elsewhere.

I know all of these rights are confusing, but it is important that all writers both new and old are familiar with them. They are a part of this business called writing.

In next week's article, I will review the Writer's Market 2001, a market resource for writers.

Here are your market and contest of the week:

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