“Ten Tips” articles are the easiest piece to write because they are made up of only an introductory paragraph, your Ten Tips, and a conclusion. Print editors love these because they can easily be shortened if there is a lack of available space.

Your articles can be used in book chapters, on websites, in E-zines and anywhere else you would like to put them. If you publish an article in a magazine, that publication now holds some or all of the rights to your work. Compiling many articles into one book works well, but what happens if other people own the copyrights? Read on.

First off, there are many rights involved with publishing your work. I only give up all rights if it is a big magazine, and in all other cases, I give up what I absolutely must in order to still get published. If you have an opportunity to be published in Newsweek or some other large publication, that is a far bigger deal than having to rewrite a portion of your book. So don’t give up all of your rights unless you absolutely have to. Especially be sure never to give electronic rights to a print publication unless you receive some money for it.

For other information on publication rights check out these sites:

http://www.authorsguild.org Do a search on this site for the keyword “rights”

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec97/cew3.htm A Novice Writer’s Guide to Rights

This article was posted on August 31, 2005