New market, my birthday, copyright stuff

Womag news

Stylist magazine will be publishing one short story a week from April. These should be under 1,000 words and can be of any genre. The fee is £200 and they don't take all rights. Sounds pretty good to me!

They say they'll consider submissions from anyone, but 'Stylist Short Stories is designed to offer an opportunity to those who are particularly underrepresented in commercial publishing such as female-identifying, trans and non-binary writers' full details are here

Copyright stuff

Recently I've had queries from a couple of people uncertain about the rights they gave up when a story was published in the past. Unfortunately it isn't always possible to answer that query.

If I sold to the magazine at the time I'll know what my contract said – because I always read mine, check I understand and keep a copy. If you sold to the same magazine at the same time it's likely the contract you signed will be the same, but it might not be. When terms change contracts aren't always sent to everyone at once. Sometimes stories are accepted on one set of terms but not published until after the new contracts comes into force so different stories in the same issue could be subject to different terms. It's also possible that an author may have negotiated terms which differ from the standard contracts. (I have, very occasionally, negotiated terms which don't require me to give up all rights when others in the same publication have signed theirs away.)

Please, please, please – read any contract and be sure you understand it BEFORE signing, and keep a copy. You may think now that you don't mind what rights you give up so it doesn't matter and then find in the years to come that you feel differently. If you can't check which rights you gave up, you can't assume you can legally use the story.

Free entry competition news

Thanks to Alyson for the link to this short story competition. There's £500 on offer, plus a free virtual workshop to get help with your entry.

Now the really important part. It's my birthday. I know I'm getting money to spend on plants and plan to spend part of the day choosing and planting them. That will make me hungry, so please leave cake in the comments.