Fully Booked EP68: Untangling the Complexities of Short Story Rights

Just as writing short stories is very different to writing novels, there’s a lot more to selling them as well. Generally, a short story is sold for a fixed amount to a publisher, meaning you don't get ongoing royalties - but if you do things properly, you can have the opportunity to sell that same story to other publishers again and again.

The most important thing is to understand all your rights. That way, you can only sell which rights are strictly necessary to each publisher, while ensuring that at some point most of these rights revert back to you. Multi-award-winning author Douglas Smith is an expert in this subject, having written extensively on how authors can maximize the value of their short story rights. Today, he sits down with Craig and Roland to go through everything you need to know on the subject: From understanding the different markets, to the format you're selling in, to the various dimensions of rights that need to be considered like geography, language and occurrence.

By following Douglas' advice, authors can maximize the reach of their stories as well as their earnings, ensuring that each one has the potential to bring in income for years to come.

 

Douglas Smith

http://www.smithwriter.com/

 

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