Acceptance! Now What?

Brett Marie said:

Now, I didn't sign any contract for this, and I'm wondering what my rights are in terms of what I can do with the story from now on.

Do the rights immediately revert back to me? Can I start submitting to other magazines from this point, or do I have to wait? Would it be proper etiquette to wait? I'm not too sad if I've lost the rights to it permanently (it wasn't my best story by a long shot), but I ought to know if that's the case, as well.

Click to expand...

If there's no rights agreement (it can be a formal contract, but it can also be a handshake agreement via email or something), you've sold the minimum required rights. That means they brought one time rights to publish the piece. They don't get fancy twizzles like exclusive periods, anthology rights, or anything else, unless it was agreed.

So yes, it sounds like you're now free to do what you like with the piece.

And if they argue (which they probably won't) you can at least make sure you have the e-mail trail to prove that they did not, in fact, buy those rights but let it be known that, should they wish them, they are up for sale...

Though I would also check the site's T&Cs as sometimes sites have clauses as to which rights they acquire in there rather than in any contract...

Just something to add to the Stephen King part of this thread: he obviously doesn't write short stories these days because he needs the money. He writes them because he loves writing them and he's pretty darn good at it.

Two of his short stories that will be published this fall (The Dune in Granta Magazine and The Little Green God of Agony in A Book of Horrors) are excellent examples of classic, gothic horror.

If those stories had come across my desk with a "no name" author on them, I would have bought them in a heartbeat and asked if him if he had a novel in need of a home...

Just my two cents.

I sold my first story multiple times. You might want to look into audio markets...I did and it worked a treat even though they misspelled my name.