posted
OK...I am sure this has come up...can anyone send me a link or a brief definition of what constitutes publishing? I read what publishers ask in submissions and they say they aren't interested in anything that has been on a website./// does that mean private locked boards?///writers boards in particular?///I am reluctant to show my stories for critiqing on writers boards for fear that I am shooting myself in the foot///any editors out there or others that can tell me the straight scoop on this? thanks Posts: 690 | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
Publishing means making available to be read. Most publishing is done by publishers who pay authors for the right to be the first one to make a written work available to be read. That's called First Publication Rights.
Some publishers are only interested in certain formats, such as electronic publishing, or magazine publishing, or anthology publishing, and they pay only for those rights.
Book publishers usually are interested in as many rights as they can get, including movie rights, foreign-language rights, electronic rights, gaming rights, reprint rights, as well as book publication rights. The rights they don't actually use, such as movie rights, or gaming rights, they are willing to sell (usually if the author or the author's agent can find someone to buy them) and they will split the money 50-50 with the author. The more powerful the author or the author's agent is, the more non-book-publishing rights the author will be able to keep from the book publisher, so that when they sell, the author will get more than half the money for them. New writers don't usually have that kind of power, so the best they can do is ask that the rights will revert to the author after a certain amount of time has passed (this is called a "sunset clause" in a contract, and it is really worth fighting for).
You want to sell as few rights to a publisher as you possibly can. Never sell all rights unless you are writing under a work-for-hire arrangement (which means you are agreeing up front to sell them all rights).
You should try to only sell first serial rights to a magazine and first anthology rights to an anthology. If possible, try to only sell first North American serial rights to a magazine published in Canada or the US and first British serial rights to a magazine published in the British Isles. If you can't do that, try to only sell first English language serial rights instead of first world serial rights. Magazines usually insist on first electronic rights as well, and writers don't have much choice about that.
Sell as few rights as you can and try to get them as specific as possible. I remember hearing once about a guy who was able to break up the gaming rights to a game he created, and he was able to sell something like 50 different kinds of gaming rights because he made sure his contracts were very specific.
Whatever you do don't sell the copyright. Sell permission to publish in a certain format for a certain period of time (so that you specify when the rights will revert back to you).
Selling the right to publish something you've written is the only way you can make any money as a writer, so you have to be very protective of those rights or you will lose.
posted
A story is published if it is publicly available.
Discussion forums that are invitational and password-locked access (e.g. Liberty Hall, Codex, OWW, Critters) do not count as publishing. Blogs - even friends-locked blog posts - DO tend to count.
NEVER publish a story on a website or blog unless you are prepared to only ever sell reprint rights for it.
posted
Kathleen Dalton Woodbury said: (snip) Whatever you do don't sell the copyright. (snip)
I wrote a fantasy story that could also be considered a children's story, so I'm considering selling it to kid's markets. Ever heard of "Highlights for Children"? I know I read it when I was a kid. I looked up their submissions page. They pay pretty well BUT they don't just buy printing rights, they buy the copyright. I was shocked when I read that on their guidelines! There's no way I will ever sell them anything unless they change that!
posted
Yeah, well, some people think being published in HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN is worth selling their copyrights. It is a big children's magazine, and there may be some kind of prestige value that makes selling the copyright worth it.
posted
A lot of writers get well paid for stuff to which they don't own the copyright. For a very long time, the comic book publishing industry worked this way (much of it still does). And look at all the Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer and other franchises. I know writers who work for these and do very well out of it. But in most cases they areusing "stock" characters, though with their own input into the supporting cast and plot and so on.
So there are circumstances where you wouldn't retain copyright to your work. But you have to be careful. If you came up with a great caracter for a story and sold it to this market, you wouldn't then be able to use that character elsewhere - if it became incredibly popular and successful, tough. They'd be the ones owning it and able to get other writers to produce stuff using that character. You'd have no say, and no share of profits.
posted
I suppose my putting up my stories on my website constitutes publication. I put them up because I'd submitted them everywhere I wanted to submit to. If anyone wants to reprint, write me and we'll talk.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The US Copyright Office defines publication as voluntarily presenting a creative property to the public in a fixed, tangible form in exchange for compensation, monetary or otherwise.
First, it must be presented to the public without restriction. -Creative properties offered for critique, review, or in consideration of publication don't meet this test.
Second, it must be in a fixed, tangible form. -Arguably, a digital publication not being in a tangible form, such as printed on paper, might not meet this test. The legal debate is ongoing. However, any given digital publisher may exercise their rights as though a digital publication does meet the test. There's a few extant legal precedents to support it. Kurt Vonnegut is one author who went against Random House in Rosetta Books v Random House to successfully assert a separate publishing right for digital publication not detailed in his contract with Random House. -A previous version of a substantially revised or rewritten creative property does not necessarily meet the test of being in a fixed form.
Third, it must be offered voluntarily. -Someone else taking a creative property belonging to another and representing it as their own does not meet this test. The same applies to publishing a creative property without the voluntary consent of the owner. A contractual agreement to publish does.
Fourth, it must be for compensation. -Monetary compensation or other recognition meets this test, including, but not necessarily so, publication in a critically selective venue for acknowledgment of merit, in other words, not a vanity publication.
These tests are one side of the legal definition of publication. What weight any given publisher places on them is a matter between the publisher and the owner of the creative property rights. Whether publication on a personal Web site, an off-the-beaten path publication or defunct publishing site, or in a vanity publication consumes first rights is a matter of whether the creative property rises above it's legacy and whether it has appreciable circulation "legs" to justify overlooking previous marginal publication.
Edited to add overlooked points.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 16, 2009).]
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