It was another day of Free Money! Which means Highlights for Children sold rights to one of my stories (actually, this time they sold rights to TWO different stories) and sent me a check! I don’t submit to most magazines that take all rights, but I will submit to Highlights (mostly because of the free money thing). Actually, I don’t submit to magazines much at all anymore (I don’t remember the last story I sent to a magazine…must’ve been “Long Distance Grandma,” which was sold to Spider about four years ago and was published a year or so ago.). One reason is because most of them take all rights now. Another reason is selling to magazines isn’t the “instant gratification” it used to be. It can take a just as long (if not longer) to see your work in print when you sell a magazine story as when you sell a book. And sometimes the magazine doesn’t even pay you until they publish the story, either. It just seems like my time is better spent writing other stuff…my own stuff, Boxcar Children books, stuff for educational publishers.
But I don’t know…maybe I should add up just how much I’ve made on reprint rights for some of these stories again…the last time I did this, it was over $2000 per story (one that was originally published in Cricket has made well over $3000). That’s not bad for a short story. At least Highlights sends you a check when they sell reprint rights…with the Cricket story, the check comes from the publisher who wants the story, not from Cricket. I wonder if the Cricket group shares reprint money with authors who sign their new all rights contract?
I got my check today and put “Free Money” in MY subject line (in an email to DH)!
Very cool! I’m glad other people are getting free money, too! 🙂
Ooooh, free money, I like that!
Hey, who doesn’t? 🙂
Free money
“I wonder if the Cricket group shares reprint money with authors who sign their new all rights contract?”
Nope. They published a few of my poems with an old First Rights contract, and for those they’ve shared reprint profits. Later poems I let go for first N/A serial rights and nonexclusive reprint rights (why, I don’t know), and I’ve found some of those reprinted on on-line testing sites. Never seen a dime from those or even been told anything was happening.
I like it much better when the publishers come straight to the authors. Most of us are easy enough to find, after all.
Re: Free money
That’s what I was afraid of. 🙁 That’s just wrong!
I’ve sold them two stories since they made that change in their contracts. They sent me the original contract first and I just asked if I could have the same terms I had for my previous sales. They said that wouldn’t be any problem since I’d sold to them before. And they sent me the original contract. With the second sale, they just sent me the original contract to start with; I didn’t have to ask. But that was also before they let most of their staff go, too. I don’t know if the new staff would go for that or not.
Have you ever tried to get the old contract?
Re: Free money
No. I haven’t sent them anything for years. If I ever do, I’ll certainly ask for one-time rights and see what happens.