Rights...

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In the past, I have derived a substantial part of my income from women's magazines. I have written many, many stories for them - long, short and medium-length - and a goodly number of serials. They used to pay for First British Serial Rights (meaning they got to publish my words first) and there was usually an agreement that I wouldn't re-sell or re-publish them for a year. The copyright remained with me.

I was, needless to say, entirely happy about the situation. Some magazines paid better than others, but it was all fair, all above board, and I RETAINED THE COPYRIGHT.

One magazine I wrote for rolled out new contracts asking for global rights, but not exclusivity, so I was free to re-sell on myself if I wanted to (I do). I didn't like the idea that they could also re-sell on without paying me anything. I no longer write for them.

Woman's Weekly are now asking for all rights. ALL RIGHTS. Even copyright. So if I sell a piece of work to them once, that's it, it's gone forever and I will never again be paid for the use they get out of it. I will also never be able to expand it, add more story strands, give the characters enriched lives... I won't, in other words, be able to reap the benefits of my own imagination and of the not inconsiderable amout of work it takes to create a believable world.

This is totally unacceptable. I will not write for them again until fair contracts are resumed. The thing is - women's magazine fiction is important. It is often the only fiction people have time to read. The reach of women's magazines is immense. My words have touched countless thousands of lives. By driving good, strong writers like me away, the magazine is impoverishing the very readers who keep them in business. They are dismissing both writers and readers as irrelevant.

Not well played, Woman's Weekly. Not well played at all.
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