What Are Your Rights as a Writer?

Are you thinking of sending your article or short story to a paying magazine market? If so, it's important to understand the rights you'll be selling to those magazines.

Each magazine buys different rights when they pay you for your fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. And it's important to understand what those rights are before sending your work off to market.

Here are the rights most commonly sought by magazine publishers.

First North American Serial Rights.

This means you are giving a serial publication (like a magazine or newspaper) permission to be the first ones to publish your work in North America (which includes the US and Canada). It also means they can only publish the piece once. And, if the magazine distributes a version in another country, your work can't be published in that publication. For that, the magazine would have to get additional rights from you, the contributor. After publication, rights to the work revert back to you, meaning you can submit it to another publication. However, publishers usually ask that you wait a certain period before doing so.

First Serial Rights.

Similar to First North American Serial Rights but, here, you are giving a publisher permission for your work to be published in a serial publication for the first time anywhere. And, again, they can only publish it once.

Second Serial Rights or Reprint Rights.

Even after your work has been published in one magazine for the first time, some magazines don't mind being the second (or, in the case of reprint rights, third or fourth) publication to print your piece. Even though most publications pay less for something that's already been printed elsewhere, selling second and reprint rights means making money several times on one story or article.

Some publications ask for both first and second or reprint rights.

One-Time Rights.

You are giving your permission for your material to be used by a publication once. One-time rights are not exclusive, meaning you can give permission for the piece to be used by several different publications at the same time.

All Rights.

When a publication buys all rights, that basically means they have bought exclusive rights to your work. They can publish it as many times as they want, put it on the Internet, include it in CDs, or even sell it for use by someone else. And you can never sell, or use in any way, that piece again.

Giving away all rights to something you've written might sound scary. But it can actually be beneficial, especially when you're just starting out, and the piece you're selling all right to isn't personal (like how-to articles, reviews, etc). You probably don't want to give away all rights to fiction, poetry, personal memoirs, or other writings that are near and dear to your heart.

Navigating the world of print publishing can be intimidating for a new writer. But learning about your rights as a writer is the first step towards navigating that world with ease.