Yesterday, we explained several kinds of legal rights authors might encounter in their writing careers. Today we continue that discussion with more possible scenarios. Syndication Rights you give up: • Syndication means selling one article (or a series of articles) to multiple sources at the same time. Typically publications will not want you to sell the same piece to a competing market. • Because you are selling to multiple markets, the price garnered per publication is less than with first or sole rights. Rights you keep: • Authorship (byline) • Rights to resell or reprint in another format. • Right to limit or prohibit editing or revising of your piece. Why a writer would choose syndication: For many writers, getting paid multiple times for the same article is an appealing concept. Having an article printed in numerous publications means a greater number of readers. Increased readership is another appealing concept. Finally, syndicated writers often have their artic...

As a freelance writer, your words are your bread and butter. So, it’s important to have them work for you. The rights you keep – or give up – vary, depending on the type of contract you enter into. Because there are numerous variables, this can be confusing – even for the seasoned writer. Here’s a listing of common ways that contracts describe rights to written pieces. As a freelancer, I’ve entered into contracts for just about every listing here. I tell you this to let you know that there are no magic answers when it comes to keeping or giving up rights. It depends on your specific situation and the writing in question. All rights, or sole rights Rights you give up: • When a publication asks for all rights to your work, you are, in essence, signing it over to them. They then have the ability to publish it wherever and whenever they choose. • You cannot publish the article with another print or online publication. You cannot post it on your website or use it publicly in any way...

To be a full time writer, you need to understand the rights that you are selling to publishers. Ignorance can be very costly. In the first part of this article, I discussed the situations that you should try to avoid. In this part, I will discuss the way to sell your writing that will allow you to make the most from each piece. First Rights The best case is to sell First Rights which is sometimes called First Serial Rights. What that means is that the publisher is buying the right to be the first one in that country to publish your piece. You can sell first rights in many places. You might sell first Australian rights, first North American rights, and First Japanese rights- all for the same piece of writing. That means three pay cheques. Doesn't that sound so much nicer than one pay cheque for all rights? In this case, the publication gets to publish your piece first in that area, but you retain all rights to the work. Most publications are buying first rights. If it is not written...

In the next two posts I’d like to start the discussion on selling rights to your writing. If you are a full time writer, you've likely realized that to make a living from writing, your work must be published as many times as possible. You must sell it to a publication and then be able to sell it as a reprint to other publications as many times as you like. In this way a story, article, or poem can be earning you an income while you are busy with new work. For this to happen, you need to pay strict attention to who you submit to and what rights they are buying. Selling a piece of writing to a publisher who demands 'all rights' is like cutting your legs off. Your work is gone and unless the money the publisher is offering is enough to set you up for life, or as near to that as possible, you'd rather give it a miss. Let's take a quick look at the various options for the rights that publishers can buy from you. Let's start with the worst case scenarios: All rights W...