Wednesday 30 March 2022

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.


22 comments:

ados123 said...

Happy Birthday, Patsy. Enjoy your day and may it be filled with plants and cakes.

If anyone knows what type of story Stylist takes or can point to examples, I'd love to know.
Thanks
Alyson

Marguerite said...

Happy Birthday, Patsy! I've left some homemade creamy cheesecake - two layers - my favourite - hope you like it :) I hope we will be treated with photos of the plants in time...

Elizabeth McGinty said...

Happy Birthday Patsy :) have a wonderful day and thanks for the info.

I have left some virtual chocolate eclairs, and an aubretia plant, hope you enjoy!

Linda CASPER said...

Happy birthday Patsy and thanks for all the information you post. Enjoy your day bringing together two of your fave activities ; buying new plants and eating cake in the garden centre café,

Eirin Thompson said...

Happy Birthday, Patsy! I, too, am a March 'baby'. Wishing you many happy returns of the day and a juicy slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday, Patsy. Hope you have a good cake day.
Michael D

fairyhedgehog said...

Happy Birthday! Hope you're having a lovely day.

New girl on the block said...

Happy Birthday! Wild primroses and carrot cake from me.

Excellent news about Stylist - we're badly in need of new options for submitting stories.

I've also got an unrelated question. I hope somebody can help me please. I haven't submitted to Allas for ages, and have a story which I'd like to submit. I'm not sure whether I still have the correct contact details for the magazine. What's the name of the fiction editor and the email address for subbing, please? Many thanks.

Sharon boothroyd said...

Happy birthday Patsy!
Allas more or less shut their door to English writers when they lost their translator, new girl on the block. I don't know of anyone still subbing there, as the staff are unable to read stories written in English.
Unless you can send your story written in the Swedish language, it's not really worth subbing to now.
I'd like to know what kind fiction Stylist mag would like, too.
I haven't seen the mag in the shops. We don't know how long we're waiting for a reject either, which would be very useful.
It'd be good to know if a womag writer's stories are chosen for the first issue, which I presume is online only.

Sheelagh said...

Thanks for the info Patsy, great to hear of a new subbing possibility, not sure I could say I fall into the underrepresented category though. On a different tack, hope you have a wonderful birthday, I have just been celebrating a good friends birthday by making her a birthday lunch - apple crumble was on the menu followed by nice coffee and Bean & Goose organic chocolate - I'm sending you some virtually so its calorie free too! Have a great day Patsy

Marian said...

Many thanks for the information, Patsy, and Happy Birthday. Sending you some coffee cupcakes, which I've just made using a recipe from Marian Keyes' recipe book, Saved by Cake.

New girl on the block said...

Thank you, Sharon for the info about Allas - one door opens and another one shuts! My Swedish is sadly non-existent!

Sue McV said...

Happy birthday Patsy. Hope you're having a great time. Good thing all these cakes are virtual or you'd be needing a sub to Slimmers World!

Kate Blackadder said...

Happy birthday, Patsy, and happy gardening.

Womble said...

Patsy, you forgot to mention that Stylist magazine is only interested in 'female talent', thereby excluding yours truly.

:-) said...

Great news about Stylist, if only we knew whether they will issue rejections...!?

New girl on the block said...

I've just subbed to Stylist - let's see what happens.......

Sharon boothroyd said...

I've subbed to Stylist, too - and nothing has happened!
Has anyone had any acceptances or rejections from there?
It'd be good to know what their first story is about.
Unknown -I don't think anyone should be excluded from subbing a story to an open market. If they are excluded, it's not fair.
I'm afraid I don't fall into their 'unrepresented writers' group either (I suffer from autism, anxiety and I'm from a working class background, but unfortunately none of these are included on their list).
I wouldn't let anything put you off. Give it a go!

Patsy said...

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and virtual cake! I had a lovely day, spending my birthday money on plants and eating cake and other nice things.

I've subbed to Stylist too! Their inbox must be impressively full by now. There was no auto acknowledgement and I'll be very surprised if the editor will have time to send individual acknowledgements to everyone – but I've been wrong before!

Hopefully anyone who has any kind of response will share that information. We'll probably just have to wait until a few stories have been published to find out the kind of thing they're looking for.

@ Elizabeth – I didn't see your comment until after I'd had an eclair for lunch and bought an aubretia!

@ Sheelagh, Unknown and Sharon – In one place the guidelines say they'll consider work from anyone. I took this to mean literally anyone can submit but they may prioritise work by people falling into certain groups.

Elizabeth McGinty said...

How spooky Patsy, hope you enjoy/ed both :)

J Lenni Dorner said...

Happy birthday! Party like it's 1999. Or party however you like, I don't judge.

I'm doing the #AtoZChallenge - writing a speculative fiction short story.
On the main A to Z site today for "B" I shared a list of books. Check it out!
At Operation Awesome we're doing the A to Z Challenge and running a survey to pick the next Pass or Pages query contest genre.

Patsy said...

@ Elizabeth – I did, thanks.

@ J Lenni – I'm pretending I'm too young to have partied in 1999!