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

[bccreations.livejournal.com]

Forgotten Realms fiction is guarded like Fort Knox. They're not soliciting work in the realms or any of their other properties and their own blurb says so. They're looking for fresh ideas. That's innuendo for "send us your stuff."

And everyone seems to be focusing on his comments on pay, but the only thing people should worry about are rights. Unless I'm writing in Greyhawk, Faerun, or Eberron, they can't have my rights. Period.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the pay didn't seem terribly objectionable to me. It's not high end, but a heck of a lot of lit mags don't pay any better than that. So the rights issue is really the stopping block.

But if they're not going to publish fiction anyway, it's a rather moot point! We'll just have to wait and see. :)