Writing for Hire

[alanajoli]

John Scalzi recently posted something I read with great sadness: Dragon magazine is unfortunately buying all rights for fiction, rather than paying 3-6 cents per word and first rights (or similar). That effectively makes it work-for-hire. I don't have any problems with work-for-hire, as a rule, but I'll only do work-for-hire fiction if I'm working in someone else's world. If I'm already using their IP, then it makes some degree of sense to me that they retain the rights.

I have discovered, however, that this is not always in the writer's best interest. I don't suspect Dragon (the new digital WotC published version, not the Paizo print version, which ended) will change their minds about this, which is a shame as I'd love to be published there. And knowing that there are others out there with similar magazine tastes, I figured I'd spread the heads up. The conversation on Scalzi's blog is really interesting as well.

Comments

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

While I do get that the RPG market is different, with fiction, the comparative publications are different. I mean, there are only so many places where adventures and d20 writing can get published. With fiction, the options of places to submit work are much broader. So while on the one hand, you're publishing in the RPG market, with the fiction, you don't have to be. (It reminds me of working at Barnes and Noble in Boston. The people working in the cafe got paid a lot more money, because B&N had to compete, rates wise, with Starbucks--rather than with bookstores. I don't know that that's a valid comparison, but that's what it makes me think of.)

At this point, unless I'm contracted directly to work in someone else's IP, I won't give up rights. I honestly feel I should have taken a little better care of my IP rights in some of the work I've already done. If it's a completely original piece of work, I won't submit it to a place where I can't retain the rights after a certain period of time.

But then, I don't pay to submit work to contests either (unless my entry fee covers, say, a year's subscription to the magazine to which I'm submitting). So everyone's line about what they will and won't submit to is a little different.

[dragonladyflame.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I never pay for contests either. The concept offends me.

It's frustrating to have to deal with these kinds of issues, isn't it? "This market is less ethical than this market, because the writers will submit to worse treatment so it just makes good business sense ..." I often feel that capitalism and art just don't mix.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Oh, for the love of a patron! Dan Simmons (I think--it was either him or Neal Stephenson) at one point wrote a great essay on being a Dante writer vs. being a Beowulf writer (one writing for the academy/patron, one writing for the masses). There are days when I would so totally leap into the Dante category! That's why I keep trolling the grants listings, I suppose... ;)