Thinking About Rights
May 24, 2007 by Anne Wayman
Filed under Jobs
Over in our forum we’ve been having a discussion about what rights to our work it makes sense to sell. On the whole, the comments are running to “don’t ever sell all rights.”
Just to be clear, when you sell “all rights” that’s exactly what it means. You can’t sell the work again, ever without either written permission from the purchaser or a truly substantial rewrite. It’s not a decision to be made lightly or without understanding exactly what you’re selling.
It’s also, in my opinion, rather silly of publishers to demand all rights. It smacks either of greed or an excess of caution by lawyers, or maybe both.
But before you automatically reject selling all rights, consider:
- Is there realistically a way you’ll want to use not just the material, but the words your sell in the future? My own experience is that I rarely want to include exactly what I wrote again.
- Even if you’re sure you’ll want to use the material again, how difficult would it be for you to substantially rework the material? Again, my own experience tells me it’s pretty easy to come up with another take.
In other words, will selling all rights really restrict you? Or will it put well earned cash in your pocket?
Write well and often,
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My stand is that if they want “all rights”, the price has to be high. REALLY high.
I want to be able to get into the forum and chat with everyone again. I miss you guys! :(
We miss you too… and I will eventually get this worked out… havne’t forgotten you.
Part of the problem with “all rights,” Anne, is that often this includes the materials used to write the work. Of course it varies from contract to contract, but often publishers will ask for all rights to both the finished work, and all parts thereof, including notes and prep materials. The problem there is that a rewrite using those materials (interviews, for example) becomes impossible.
My steady writing jobs right now are copywriting ones, so, selling rights doesn’t really apply to me at the moment.
However, I did turn down a very well-paying gig several months ago because I had to sell all rights and the material I would have been writing was about a topic I knew I’d use in the future. It almost hurt me physically (ha!) to turn down the money, and the chance to write about something I’m so very interested in and is very close to me, but I just couldn’t agree to it.
Almost immediately, I was hired for the http://www.mentalhealthnotes.com gig with b5media, writing about the exact topic I would have been writing about with the other company!
Life works in mysterious ways.
exactly… if you really plan to use writing in the future then don’t sell all rights… if you don’t, it isn’t such a big deal after all.
That’s the way I feel. Invariably, when I look at previous articles, I’m hit with so many different ways of approaching the same subject that I don’t feel the loss. So, I choose my battles carefully and wait for the right issue before negotiating.