All Rights
Those two words can be very, very bad for a writer. When you give up all rights to something you wrote, whichever publication you sold the piece to then owns it. Completely.
So what? You got paid. What's wrong with signing over all rights? The publication is free to resell your article and you get zilch. Let's say you sell the article to the fictional site: We'll Buy It (WBI for short). You sell it for $100.00.
WBI sends you a check for the $100.00. Then, they turn around and sell that same article seven times for say $50.00 each time. They've made a profit of $250 (I subtracted the $100.00 they paid to begin with).
Now, let's say you didn't give up all rights. You later sell the article as a reprint twice for $50.00. Again later, you sell it three times for $25.00. As long as YOU own the piece, YOU can sell it repeatedly and YOU pocket every dime.
Let's say you really, really dislike something. Maybe a moral issue. I don't know, just think of something. If the publication owns all rights to the article or whatever you wrote, they can sell it to anyone. To any site. Whether or not you like it. Whether or not it goes against your moral convictions and YOUR name will still be on the article.
You don't get paid again for that article once you give up your rights. EVER. But worse, you might do an Internet search for your work and find it on a site where you don't want it posted.
It's not worth it in the long run.
So what? You got paid. What's wrong with signing over all rights? The publication is free to resell your article and you get zilch. Let's say you sell the article to the fictional site: We'll Buy It (WBI for short). You sell it for $100.00.
WBI sends you a check for the $100.00. Then, they turn around and sell that same article seven times for say $50.00 each time. They've made a profit of $250 (I subtracted the $100.00 they paid to begin with).
Now, let's say you didn't give up all rights. You later sell the article as a reprint twice for $50.00. Again later, you sell it three times for $25.00. As long as YOU own the piece, YOU can sell it repeatedly and YOU pocket every dime.
Let's say you really, really dislike something. Maybe a moral issue. I don't know, just think of something. If the publication owns all rights to the article or whatever you wrote, they can sell it to anyone. To any site. Whether or not you like it. Whether or not it goes against your moral convictions and YOUR name will still be on the article.
You don't get paid again for that article once you give up your rights. EVER. But worse, you might do an Internet search for your work and find it on a site where you don't want it posted.
It's not worth it in the long run.
