Racheling
(?)Community Member
- Report Post
- Posted: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:31:22 +0000
LoperDoper
Racheling
Minxi_Maudlin
Don't give your work out to the first magazine that says 'yes', do your research and find out which magazines agents actually read/respect that way you can get someone decent to represent you and your work won't be stuck in some crappy magazine, because once they publish it you can't publish it again--they'll own the rights to your story. Your work is like your child!!! Cherish your work!!! biggrin
Well, agents care about the book you submit to them, not so much which magazines have published your short fiction. If it's a very prestigious magazine it could make them take a closer look, but they still have to love your submitted work. And many, many writers have signed with agents without having a single prior publication credit to their name.
It's also not necessarily true that you can't publish a short story again after you've sold it once. Some magazines do buy all rights, but many others simply purchase first North American publication rights. This means that after a certain period of time you can sell the work as a reprint. smile
I probably am wrong, but isn't that 100 years after the writer's death?
Not quite the same thing. What I mentioned were publication rights owned by the writer. How long a publisher keeps those rights depends on the contract you sign with them.
What you're referring to is length of copyright, which is a different matter. Even when you sell publication rights, you still own your copyright, which means no one can print/copy your work without permission. (Selling publication rights is one way of giving that permission.)
Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. (There's another time frame for work for hire and certain other types of work that is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.)