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I am about to send off a story to some Sci-Fi magazines (just waiting on a few more people to read/edit it, though this is the 3rd round of revisions so I don't expect too much in the way of editing) but since all magazines I have found so far do not except simultaneous submissions I have been looking around trying to figure out what magazine gives the best return (that is, the highest payment for the fewest publishing rights). So my question...
Does anyone know where I can go to find out what all the different publication rights are?
I have been reading through the US Copyright office website but have yet to find any mention of specific publishing rights. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you.
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The professional SF print magazines (ASIMOV'S, ANALOG, F&SF) only buy first North American serial rights, and you should only sell, at most, first English world serial rights to a magazine, never more than that.
Book publishers tend to try to contract for more than just the book rights, but that's why an agent is a good thing to have so that you can put a time limit on how long they can have other rights, or how much they'll pay you for them.
The website for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (www.sfwa.org) has some model contracts that you should certainly print out or download for comparison to any contract you are offered.