The following images are of posts made on this blog in 2013 by novelist Kath McGurl (who started the womagwriter blog) and the response given at the time by DCT. The images were kindly supplied by Jenny Worstall, who printed them off at the time. Thanks to both of them for permission to reproduce it.
Please keep in mind that all the below info was created at the time with the intention of clearing up confusion, and I'm making it available again now for the same reason.
Nothing in this blog makes any difference to your legal position, or that of DCT. If you have questions or concerns about your own contract (which may differ from ones held by other people), or what has been done with your work, or anything else regarding a DCT publication, these should be raised with your editor.
Please keep in mind that all the below info was created at the time with the intention of clearing up confusion, and I'm making it available again now for the same reason.
Nothing in this blog makes any difference to your legal position, or that of DCT. If you have questions or concerns about your own contract (which may differ from ones held by other people), or what has been done with your work, or anything else regarding a DCT publication, these should be raised with your editor.
The People's Friend fiction editor Lucy has made her own - new - post about contracts and republishing, which you can read here.
8 comments:
Thanks for posting this, Patsy! I hope other writers find it interesting and useful.
Thanks for posting this, Patsy. I think DCT should just change to all rights contracts in future, so everyone is absolutely clear about where they stand.
@ Jenny - thanks for making it possible!
@ Anonymous - I very much hope they don't! All rights contracts are very simple to understand (possibly one reason they're used) but I consider them incredibly unfair and will personally never sell work under those terms.
The current terms offered by DCT might seem complicated, and they're less advantageous to writers than the old first serial right contracts, but they do leave us with some options to reuse our work.
Thank you posting this and highlighting the current concerns.
With the magazine publisher using their non-exclusive rights in the contract (whichever one is the latest) it complicates publishing for many of the writers who do reuse their work, as they are entitled to.
Extra admin for any on Amazon to ensure their hard-earned reviews have not been inadvertently attached to these 'new' versions due to the same title/author name.
When there's no defined end date ( x numbers of months or years for example) for the reuse of writers' work, then writers need to think about what they are agreeing to when they get a story or pocket novel accepted for publication.
Sorry, it was me (Liz) posting above as 'anonymous'. I keep forgetting to add my name.
The reason I think they should move to all rights contracts is that the way they're now using their non-exclusive rights means those options to re-use work have now become so diminished that they're pretty much non-existent. Note that under the current contract, anyone planning to put their stories in a collection on Kindle will need to get the OK first from DCT. Might they now say no to this?
In terms of womag, I've really only written for The People's Friend, other than to have two stories accepted by Woman's World in the USA. I've had two solve-it-yourself mysteries published with Woman's World. These are 575-word stories writing to their formula. They take all rights, writers get US$400. They occasionally reuse these mysteries in little solve-it-yourself mystery books and on their website. Contrast this with the current TPF situation where I got paid around the same amount for a 9500 word long read, which they're now putting out in every available outlet through PublishDrive. I don't feel ripped off by Woman's World. I do now feel ripped off by DCT. Which is why I'll continue to submit to the former and not the latter.
Liz
@ Carol - Yes, we need to think carefully before we agree to any contract terms, competition rules etc. I think it's best to assume that any rights we assign to other might, at some point, be used, even if it's not something which usually happens at the time of signing.
@ Liz - You're right in that if we try to do something which requires permission from a publisher they might decide not to give that permission. That was always a possibility - they wouldn't have included that clause otherwise.
Please note this only applies to a book of stories they've bought these rights to. They have no control over any material they've not purchased from us.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm glad someone is trying to clear up the confusion, because the editors aren't.
Fee Dupp
I'm glad those old posts are still useful, well done Jenny for keeping a copy of them and well done Patsy for your ongoing sterling work on this blog.
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