The home of fiction author Val Gryphin…

Part three of three.

Part One
Part Two

Ok, so we’ve covered what a copyright is, and what it means to sell rights to publish a work. Now we’ll talk about bad ways to loose your first rights.

One bad way we’ve covered is to post your work online for free without having a clear plan on how you are going to use it for marketing your book. This goes for any site that is offering to put your work online to gain readers, publicity, agents, or a contract. Don’t stop, run. There is no such thing as “pre-publishing,” and posting your work online gives up your first rights. You do not have to be paid to give up your first rights! All that has to happen is your work be printed in a periodical, or put online where anyone can access it. Do either one of those and you loose your first rights, which are the most valuable in almost all cases. While giving away content in a controlled fashion where you know exactly what you are doing like I discussed last week can be a big boost, really anything else is screwing yourself if you are wanting to publish the material.

Another trap to give up you rights are those so-called contests where everything gets accepted, and then they try to get you to buy the book that your piece was published in. Poetry.com is notorious for this, but there are others. Dana K. Cassell has a great article on this called Writing Contest Cautions. Some of her points for spotting bad contests are:

No entry fees - Writing contests cost money to run. If they aren’t charging, how are they paying prizes and judges?
Entry fees that are out of proportion of the prizes offered, i.e. $20 for a $200 prize, of $5 for a $25,000 prize.
When they take your rights by putting them up online or publishing them in a book, or even just state that they will keep all rights even if you aren’t a winner. Legit contests aren’t going to take your rights if you don’t win - once the contest is over non-winning submissions should be released all rights intact. Read the contracts, particularly if there is a lot of fine print.

Finally, don’t put anything you might want to publish later on up on your website, even if you are asking for feedback. Right there you have given up your first rights, and really, the amount of feedback you get will more than likely not be enough to make it worthwhile.

Part two of three.

Part One.

Yesterday I talked about what a copyright is, how to obtain one, and what it means. Today I am going to talk about this concept of selling rights of publication for your work. When you submit a piece of writing to a market, you are offering them chance - or the right - to publish it. Depending on the market however, the rights that the magazine is willing to buy can vary greatly. Here is a basic overview of the rights that a market can ask for.

First serial rights: This means the right to be the first to publish your piece in any form, in any market. That means it cannot have been published in either electronic or print mediums, in any country. You can only sell this right once, although if the magazine folds without publishing your story the rights revert to you. Again though, be careful. I know of a market that folded and the language of the contract was such that the rights did not revert to the authors even though the magazine was gone - always read the fine print. Also, be mindful that most markets consider the the first rights of a work gone if it appeared anywhere online, even if it was only on a personal website.

First North American (or any other region) rights: This means the publisher want to be the first to publish a piece in a specified market area. This means that if you previously sold first European rights, you are free to sell first North American rights to another magazine, and visa versa. (Although you should always specify where a piece has been published before so that they are aware of what market the piece appeared in.)

Another form of first rights is first electronic rights and first print rights. Sometimes print market will buy the rights to a piece that has been published electronically, and visa versa. Be careful though, always make sure that you own the first rights to an alternate market before you resubmit it with first rights.

One-time rights: The right to use a work once. For example, if you are submitting the same piece to two (usually non-competing) markets and offering them both a chance to print the work. Again, tell the markets you are submitting to. Another was it is used is when as electronic magazine purchases this right in order to publish the story without archiving it.

Perpetual Rights: The right to keep using your work. (As in keeping them up on the sire of an online magazine indefinitely.)

Second serial or reprint rights: Just what is sounds like - you are giving a market a chance to reprint a story that has been previously printed elsewhere. (Again, tell the market you are submitting to where it was previously published.)

Archival rights: The right of a market to keep your work archived (for instance in the archives of an online magazine) either for a specified amount of time or indefinitely. How long a story will be archived for is very important to know, because sometimes markets that accept reprints will not accept a piece that still available online. In addition, a market might specify that they have exclusive or non-exclusive archive rights, which tells you whether or not it can appeare in more archives than the original market.

Anthology rights: The right to reprint your work in an anthology. With both this and archive rights make sure you know what you are giving up - when you sell these rights you will not be compensated by the market for this extended usage unless they have specified otherwise.

All rights: Just what it sounds like - while you are NOT giving up the copyright to your work, you are giving up ALL rights to publish your own work - unless you renegotiate down the road (which many markets are not be willing to do) you will not be able sell it as a reprint, publish it in an anthology, or even put it on your personal site.

Work for hire: As I am primarily discussing fiction, this probably won’t come up much, but I think it is important to mention. Work for hire is a very slippery slope as not only does the market you are writing for obtain all rights for the work you do under their umbrella, but they are actually also are considered the CREATOR of the piece. For more information read What Writers Should Know About All-Rights and Work-Made-For-Hire Contracts by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

In addition to these market there what is called subsidiary rights, which mainly come into play when talking about a book.

Basically, subsidiary rights are the right to do anything at all with the writing other than publish it as a book. So, unless you sell subsidiary rights to the publisher, you still own the right to publish your work as a movie, film, videotape or audiotape, and electronic rights, translation rights, book club rights, foreign rights, etc. - Writer’s Rights: Know What Rights You’re Selling

However, dealing with compensation and/or retaining these rights are what an agent is for. Or, if you are self-publishing, you retain all your rights until you decide to sell them. However, if you are dealing directly with a publisher, it is well worth your time and effort to research the deal they are offering you to make sure that it is good for you, not just sweet for them.

Other sources on rights:

Blood and Ink: Publishing Rights
The Business of Writing: Minding the Details

(Part one of three)

Many beginning writers worry about whether they need to copyright their works for a variety of reasons. They worry that someone could plagiarize and claim ownership over their work, that editors or agents might steal their writing or their ideas, or that at some point they might need to prove that a work is their own. Also, many worry that by marketing a pieces they are giving up the copyright to their work. Most of this is inaccurate.

So what is a copyright?

A copyright in essence is the ownership by a creator over their “literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations.” - History of the Copyright.

There are several key points involved in analyzing the copyright process.

1. A copyright is simply a legal term for saying you own a piece of work. From the Copyright Office:

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

2. It is a common misconception that in order to hold the copyright to a work it must be registered with the Copyright Office. Prior to the The Copyright Act of 1976 this was true in some cases. However, after this act, simply putting a piece of work down on paper creates your copyright. While a writer can register their pieces for the Copyright Office for $45 a piece, this is widely considered to be unnecessary. (Note - in this case I am referring specifically to fiction and/or non-fiction. I believe that scripts and screenplays might be dealt with differently, but as I am not a screenwriter I’m not 100% sure and don’t want to spread any misinformation. Screen rights when it comes to books is something else and is included with novel rights.)
From the Copyright office: Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See “Copyright Registration.”

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. “Copies” are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. “Phonorecords” are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the “work”) can be fixed in sheet music (“copies”) or in phonograph disks (“phonorecords”), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.

3. When you submit a story to a market, you are not offering them the copyright - you are offering them the right to publish your work under specified terms. You still retain the copyright, and you are the author of the piece. (Although work-for-hire rights can be different.) The next post in this series will deal with rights.

4. When you are offering a piece to the public, such as on a website, posting a copyright statement is a good idea to warn the average web browser, who thinks everything they find online is free for the taking, that your work is not to be swiped. (I have a copyright notice on my own website.) Also, if a work is published with a copyright and date it can be beneficial in any plagiarism cases. However, having a copyright notice on your work is NOT required by law in order to retain the copyright. (Although works published before March 1st, 1989 may be different. More info here.)

For written work a copyright statement is written as:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and

2. The year of first publication of the work. In the case of compilations or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2006 John Doe

However, when a piece of writing is submitted to a market, the editors know that the author holds the copyright to their work, and including a copyright notice is seen as the mark of an amateur as it indicates a lack of trust in the editors.

So, in summery of how this works for me personally, I have a notice of copyright on my website because I don’t want random people taking off with parts of my writing without permission and/or giving credit. My website is out in the public’s eye, and in the same way that a magazine has a copyright statement, I want to make it clear the content is mine. However, when I am submitting a piece to a market I never place a notice of copyright on my manuscript as it is extremely unprofessional.

Next: What different rights mean.