This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: question about rates

>I have sold articles to publications in the east that never reach where I live, then did a little editing and re-sold the piece later to someone in another part of the country.  <
  
Lon,

The second-rights thing is a whole nuther issue. And you're right, it's one more writers should be aware of.

First off, if you've "did a little editing" it is technically no longer the same piece. Ethically you may want to do so serious rewriting before selling it to a competing market. But legally, any changes make it a different story. I offer that tidbit just as an aside, not to start a discussion on ethics.

The primary thing to keep in mind is whether or not you realistically have other markets for the same story. Often enough I hear how important it is to retain as many rights as you can so you can resell the tale. But most of the time I hear it from people who never do. So, rule #1 is to be realistic. If you take a cut in pay by limiting the rights, and then never resell it, then you've unnecessarily taken a loss.

If you work the second rights market right, however, you can often earn a lot more money than by selling the same story to a major market. For instance, make a list of all the regional gardening magazines in the country. Let's say you have ten of them who'll buy your stuff, each of whom pays $100. And you have a national market that pays $900. Simple arithmetic tells you to sell one-time regional rights to those ten smaller ones. The only extra work is hitting the print button and licking the envelopes.

You could, too, write a story for the major market, then rewrite it a few months later for the regionals, and really double dip.

If you sell one-time, or first rights, or even first NA serial rights, the world is really your oyster, particularly when it comes to selling special interest articles to magazines not in the field. For instance, let's say you sell a piece to a major national gardening magazine. If you sell one-time rights, you can then turn around and sell that story to a lifestyle magazine, because they are not direct competitors.

Legally you could sell it to another major gardening magazine. But as a practical matter, you'll then cut yourself off from future sales in both those publications.

Do a story on growing herbs on the kitchen widow, for instance. In addition to gardening magazines, the possible markets include cooking magazines; health & fitness magazines; shelter magazines; kids magazines. Even RVing magazines are a possibility. In each case, you are selling the same piece to a different special interest book who do not compete with each other.

Keep in mind, too, that anytime you research a story you have lots of material that you don't use. All of which should be recycled. You could, for instance, pitch two national magazines about, say, fall perennials, and write two different stories on that theme, using the same research. No, this isn't a second rights market. But it is a way of maximizing the return on invested time.

As you research those perennials stories, btw, you will uncover ideas that suggest other stories. You should develop a mindset for that, too. The fall perennials piece might lead to stories on, say, "The Color Blue," or "Edible Landscaping in the Perennials Border," or a dozen other concepts. Again, not second rights. But those sales led inexorably from having done the perennials piece, and are all part of the multiple-sales outlook. Between second rights and new ideas, Friend Wife and I once recycled one idea into 18 sales, none of which actually included the original concept. 

Newspapers, by the way, are an often overlooked second rights market. The rule of thumb (there are exceptions, however) is that if newspapers are 200 miles or more apart they are not competitors. So, there's a potential for several hundred sales of the same article. Those papers may only pay twenty five or thirty bucks each. But lord, there are a lot of them.

As to anthologies and similar uses. I have never yet worked for a magazine that wouldn't return any rights they are not going to use. So, if you're doing an anthology of your columns, just formally ask the editor for permission to use them. Most of the time they'll gladly return that right, with, at most, a request (or requirement) that you credit the original publication. That's why you often see lists of "This originally appeared in XYZ" in the front of such books. Again, not a problem. And certainly not worth taking a reduction in pay for. 

But all of this might be academic. Most magazines have a policy about what rights they buy, which is set by the corporate lawyer, not the editor. So it's often a non-negotiable issue. What you have to decide is whether or not the rights they demand fit into your sales philosophy.


Brook 
_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
&quot;Gardenwriters on Gardening&quot; &lt;gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org&gt;

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index