Writing Success

Your Rights as a Freelance Writer - Part 2

Today we’re going to go back and look at the publication rights we mentioned the other day. The publication rights you are given when you sell your work can have a huge impact on your ability to reuse your work later on in life.

If a publication gives you first serial rights you are getting the absolute best deal a writer can get. You are giving the publication the right to be the first publication to ever publish that particular article but you retain the rights to resell that work to other publications later on down the line. If you decide to build a blog later on you could include the article as content, or you could sell it to another publication. It’s up to you. It is possible to limit the meaning of first serial rights depending on your geographic location or the language the piece is to be published in as well.

One-time rights become important if and when you sell an article to a newspaper or local periodical. This means you give the publisher the rights to publish your piece one time but that they don’t care whether or not anyone else is publishing that article at the same time. The local newspaper in Orlando, Florida isn’t going to care if a local paper in San Francisco, California is publishing the same article during the same time frame. They publisher may turn around ask you not to resell the article to a paper within the same area of circulation. Therefore, you can’t sell the same article to the local Orlando paper as you would do the paper that serves the entire county.

When you market a piece that has been previously published you are attempting to sell second serial (reprint) rights. You can resell the article to as many publications as are willing to print it as long as you only gave one-time rights to the first publisher.

Selling an article with all rights means you can never sell it again. The publisher has to give you credit as the author every time it is published, but he can reprint it as many times as he likes in any form he wishes and never has to pay you anything more than the originally agreed upon price.

Work for hire is the worst situation a writer can find himself in. In short, you’ve been hired to write a specific piece, will be paid once for it, will not be given credit as the author, and may never republish the piece anywhere. You’re essentially selling the work itself as opposed to the aforementioned “right to publish” the work. The copyright for work done in this capacity will automatically transfer to the client or publisher upon delivery of the article, or upon payment, depending upon how your contract was negotiated.

You should, of course, make sure that the rights to your work are clearly outlined in the contract you sign with any publication. If you aren’t signing a formal contract you should put your agreements in the form of a letter and send it to the publisher outlining what you believe your understandings to be.

Make sure you contact a lawyer for help if you ever have any questions about your rights or contracts. He or she can help you muddle through the confusing world of legal documentation!

Your Rights as a Freelance Writer - Part 1

Today we’re going to start taking a look at your rights, as a writer, to the work you sell. It’s no secret that writers write to be paid and this is a question most new writers often ask after they’ve had their first piece published. This only makes sense, especially after pouring countless hours into the research, construction, and marketing of a piece.

Usually when you sell an article to a magazine or newspaper you are not actually selling the article itself. What you are sellign is the right to publish the piece that you’ve written and that publication will almost always include a byline that indicates you are there author.

There are, however, a few different situations that describe the rights of the writer versus publisher as they pertain to how that particular piece of work can be used. These include, but aren’t necessarily limited to:

• First serial rights,
• One-time rights,
• Second serial (reprint) rights,
• All rights, and
• Work for hire

The world of freelance writing can certainly be a bit mysterious and confusing. In our next post we’ll take each of these categories and break them down, explaining exactly what you’re getting (or not getting) by selling your work under each. Until then, take a look at a few of your contracts and see what you’ve gotten yourself into in the past. Do you really understand what rights you still have as they pertain to each piece you’ve already sold?

Myths about Blogging

Scott Rosenberg, one of the co-founders of Salon.com, is shown in the following video explaining what he views as the top 10 myths about blogging. Does a  blogosphere exist? Are bloggers journalists? Can bloggers really be trusted? I think you’ll find this brief video slightly informative - and definitely humorous.

The truth, as far as I’m concerned, is that blogging is essential to the success of any freelance writing business. If you aren’t blogging already, you should seriously consider building a blog. Your potential clients will want to see real-life examples of your work, published live on the web. Sometimes linking to work on other sites is acceptable, but others will want to read what you’ve written in your own voice.

If you have a blog, let us know about it here. If not, consider starting one soon. The sooner you get started the easier it will be to maintain!

How to Write a Professional Job Bid

All writers, but especially newer freelancers, seem to have a difficult time writing job bids. Writing the perfect bid is more of an art than a science. I remember the first time I took the time to browse a freelance job board. I was immediately stunned by the realization that I would eventually have to write some sort of bid and that my bid would compete against others in an attempt to find work. Uh oh…

I quickly learned that there are a few things you can do to make every job bid you write stand out from the rest. As I am in the unfortunate position of having to read job bids from time to time, I can first offer this piece of advice -

Never write a canned job bid and expect to use it for every job you want to bid on. Each bid you write needs to be personalized.

The first thing you should do is write a very brief description of yourself and your services. Be sure to include your name and a sentence or two explaining why your experiences qualify you for the job in question. …Continue Reading How to Write a Professional Job Bid

The Advantages of Freelance Writing

You might be a little bit nervous about launching your freelance writing career and that’s completely understandable. Fortunately, there are quite a number of benefits to being a freelancer - especially if your area of expertise is in writing.

Check out this video put together by the folks at FreelanceWriting.com. It covers the three main advantages of freelance writing and gives you some tips and tricks on what you need to get started.

Don’t forget - getting started in the field of freelance writing isn’t easy but it’s definitely worth the time and effort you’re going to put into it. Take your time, start slowly, and before you know it you’ll be on the path to success!

10 More Places to Find Inspiration for Your Next Article

It’s early in the week, so I thought I’d offer up a few more suggestions for great places to look for article ideas. We all get stuck in a rut now and again, so its nice to know you can find inspiration in out of the way places. That is, if you know where those places are.

The next time you’re feeling stuck for an article idea try looking at some of the following.

1. 1. Go to the local park, mall, or (if you’re lucky) boardwalk and start watching the people as they mill around. Your’e bound to see at least one or two interesting events - kids acting silly, people arguing, a physical altercation. Take what you see and hear and find a way to spin it into an article.
2. 2. Talk to your friends and neighbors about events in the local or national news. Find out what their opinions are and listen carefully. You may hear an angle you’ve never thought of.
3. 3. Sit down outside and free associate. Grab a blanket, head towards the park (or your backyard) and let your mind do the talking. You might even take a pen and piece of paper for some good old-fashioned free association doodling. …Continue Reading 10 More Places to Find Inspiration for Your Next Article

Writing Success Blog Carnival - June 2009

Social Networking with TwitterFollow

Not long ago, problogger John Chow introduced a new service known as TwitterFollow. The premise is that if you join you promise to “follow” anyone who follows you on Twitter.

Sounds like a great idea for those of us who need to build a Twitter following for marketing purposes, right?

Wrong.

I implemented TwitterFollow on my personal Twitter account just to see how it would work out. In the end I managed to accumulate 700+ Twitter followers - none of whom bother to read what I “tweet.” …Continue Reading Social Networking with TwitterFollow

Making a Video with Windows Movie Maker

Freelance writing won’t always be about writing text. In some instances you may be asked to put together some sort of instructional video, in which case you’ll want to be familiar with a simple to use (and FREE) movie editing program such as Windows Movie Maker.

I had the opportunity to make my own first video last week and while I wasn’t able to use Windows Movie Maker, the program I used was very similar. I highly encourage all freelance writers to at least learn how to make a simple video. You never know when you’ll be asked to make one and it’ll only serve to increase your value as a writer while enhancing your skill set.

Check out this brief Windows Movie Maker Tutorial for an introduction…

Technical Skills and Freelancing

Here’s hoping you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Mine was busy and I’m sure you’re wondering where I was all last week. I was attempting to set up a new computer and was having a very difficult and time-consuming experience.

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. Make sure you backup your system on a regular basis. You never know when some sort of unfortunate technical glitch will send your harddrive into computer purgatory and if you don’t have a backup you’ll lose all of your past and present work. What a drag…

In my case, fortunately, I didn’t necessarily need to use a backup to restore lost files (though I did end up making a new one to transfer files from one computer to the other). I was lucky, though. …Continue Reading Technical Skills and Freelancing