By Tracy Marchini
One of the most common pieces of advice to freelance writers is to try and resell your previously published articles in order to increase your income with a smaller time investment. But before you try to reuse, reduce, or recycle, a writer has to make sure they actually have the rights to do so.
It was difficult to pick just five terms from Pub Speak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms, but here are five that every freelance writer should know when they’re considering reselling work:
- Canceled contract.An agreement between two parties which has been deemed no longer in effect according to the termination clause. In publishing, this generally means that a termination letter has been signed by both parties and the rights have returned to the original owner.
- Exclusive rights.Rights that are granted to one party alone. If an author grants exclusive audio rights to one audio publisher, they cannot sell the audio rights to that work to another publisher until the first contract is terminated.
- Length of term.The amount of time a contract or agreement remains in effect.
- Reversion request.A letter or other written communication that asks for the cancellation of a contract and the return of previously granted rights to the author.
- Work-for-hire.Work that is made according to a publisher or other contractor’s specifications. The author generally does not retain the copyright to the material they produced and may or may not receive royalties.
If you have granted exclusive print rights to a magazine, you will have to either wait until the length of term expires, or write a reversion request in order to cancel the contract before you would be able to sell the same article to another print magazine. If you have written the article as work-for-hire, the copyright will not be transferred to you and you will not be able to resell the article at all as all the rights belong to the contractor or publisher.
In the digital age, you may even have to check your contract to ensure you have the right to reuse the article on your own blog or website. If you have granted exclusive electronic rights to a publisher, then you do not have the right to post the full-length article on your blog and would be in breach of contract if you did so. Some contracts do outline an amount that the author is allowed to use in electronic or other formats for marketing and publicity. If you’re in doubt, it is always better to ask the publisher than to be in breach. (To be in breach of contract means that one has broken one or several of the terms outlined in the contract and could be subject to paying damages to the other party.)
Another important thing to note is that if the length of term is the length of the copyright, then the term length is for the length of the author’s life plus seventy years. (This is according to current copyright law, which is subject to change.) This is something to seriously consider before signing the contract if you have not already agreed to doing the work as a work-for-hire.
One final note -- remember to read each contract carefully before you sign. They’re your rights, use them well!
Tracy Marchini is a freelance writer and editorial consultant. Before launching her own editorial service, she worked for Curtis Brown, Ltd. for four years. Her experience also includes work as a newspaper correspondent, a book reviewer for BookPage, and a freelance copywriter for Scholastic. Tracy's latest project is Pub Speak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms, an ebook that defines over 400 industry terms.
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