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Thanks for letting me read "XXXXX" With your permission, I'd like to use it in the Spring 09 issue of XXX, for the usual payment of $X. If this is acceptable, please let me know right away, and include a short, third person bio.

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Of course I sent my bio in and waited a week for a contract before wondering "Okay, what's the deal?....no contract"...this is after waiting 47 days to hear about the acceptance to begin with...on the 48th day....I have another publisher interested in my story, but I tell them it has already been accepted and send them another to which they "immediately" reply and congratulate me and thank me and let me know they will let me know on the other one I sent them...so I send a letter to the first editor asking the first editor whether they were still interested in my story they accepted...here is the reply:

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Hi, Mark --

First, there is no formal contract for XXX. We look for one time rights, and ask that you don't reprint the work elsewhere while the issue is live (three months.) Payment is sent out by the publisher soon after publication. The issue should go up sometime in the first week of March.

Second, we, like most publications, are not happy with simultaneous submissions, which can lead to huge problems in issue balance. In the future, if you submit something to XXX, please do not submit it elsewhere unless/until we reject it.

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Most ezines have a page where they detail what rights they're asking for, usually just first time. If it's different they'll say so.

For the XXX market, the operative word is "formal". You have a contract -- an agreement to provide product (the story) in exchange for a consideration (fee). Verbal and e-mail agreements (contracts) can be enforced in law, although it can get difficult if the nature of the agreement is in dispute. Contracts are usually written in an attempt to avoid disputes.

In the case of your e-mail contract with XXX, there are some alarm bells. First, define "soon": a week after publication? Two weeks? 47 or 48 days? Worst case, it's carefully undefined to enable them to manage cashflow and means "we'll pay you if and when we have the money and you get to the top of the list of people we didn't pay yet."

Second, it says "should go up ..." What if it's late? Is payment late too? And, "should" does not mean "will". What if they change their minds? What if it never "goes up"? Do you still get paid, and if so, when? (And to be pedantic, does "goes up" mean "published"? If it does, why not say "published"? Could "published" mean, perhaps, "printed in our print anthology, when we get around to printing it"? If so, you don't get paid soon after it "goes up" but some indeterminate time later.)

Beware: lack of formal contract, and/or use of weasel words like "should" and "soon" implies reluctance to define the agreement in clearly enforceable terms ... or, more positively but perhaps naively, it could mean a careful eye to costs and well-meaning amateurishness.

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited February 24, 2009).]

[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited February 24, 2009).]