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06-25-2005, 01:14 AM
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#1
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Scribe
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 69
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Legal situation regarding short stories
Hi.
I'm a writer who has just decided to take a turn in the serious direction, and had a question concerning the legality of re-using sold short stories.
In Stephen King's "On Writing", Stephen made a reference to having sold his short story, "Graveyard Shift", to a fiction magazine during his younger years. Later on, he used "Graveyard Shift" in one of his collection books.
As I understood it, if I were to sell a story to a magazine, the magazine would buy the rights, and it would essentially become ~theirs~. I am wrong? If the magazine bought the rights to my story, wouldn't that mean that I would not be able to use it in a collection later on? For "Graveyard Shift", did Stephen King have to buy back his story or something?
This is a concern because I'd like to get some notches on my belt by selling some short stories to magazines (before I try to sell my novels), but I'm worried that if I sell them, they're gone.
Please clarify?
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06-25-2005, 01:22 AM
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#2
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pliable
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Juneau, Alaska
Posts: 12,607
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Usually magazines buy one-time rights for short stories, meaning they're able to publish it once (and maybe later in an anthology or something—all depends on the contract) and then all rights revert back to the author.
Some magazines will try to con you out of all your story's rights, meaning that they'll acquire permanent publishing rights to it. Try to negotiate your way out of those, because they suck.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Drzava
Usually it takes at least 100 [posts] before people start to hate Hodge
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Science
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06-26-2005, 09:13 AM
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#3
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Wordsmith
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Back 'home' on Tinian!
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,445
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i'd only add to hodge's good advice to not only 'try to negotiate your way out of' an 'all rights' deal, but to avoid them completely!...
nothing paying only in the 3-figure range is worth giving up all rights to a piece of work... and only the very most prestigious venue paying more than that would be worth your considering giving them up to, imo...
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06-26-2005, 06:49 PM
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#4
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Scribe
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 69
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Will magazines typically try to shoot for buying all rights? Take advantage of new writers? Or do they usually just offer to buy one-time publishing rights?
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06-26-2005, 06:52 PM
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#5
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pliable
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Juneau, Alaska
Posts: 12,607
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They usually just want one time rights. I haven't come across any publishers that want permanent rights—although I know there are some out there.
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06-27-2005, 10:15 AM
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#6
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Wordsmith
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Back 'home' on Tinian!
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,445
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ditto hodge's comments...
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For 100% free writing help/mentoring:
www.saysmom.com
"You must BE the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi
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