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Topic: Printing columns as a book
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| SillyRabbit | Posted – 11/12/2007 9:38:49 AM | show profile | email poster I wrote a series of columns a few years ago that I'm thinking of shopping around as a book. I would probably run each column, then add a bit on the story behind the column and maybe even do some interviews with discussing the topic of each column. They had a fan-base in the area where they were printed, and I'm hoping they'd have broader appeal, too. I wrote for a small freebie entertainment publication. We had no arrangement about the columns but that I would do them and would be paid (the publisher got later and later with payments as time went on, and I eventually stopped writing them because he was so behind in payments, though he did finally pay up). I think that I own the columns, I think we may have discussed that he had first-time publishing rights and then I owned them, but I'm not 100 percent certain of this as this was several years ago. I do know we had no contract. Can I have these published? Will a publisher avoid touching them if I don't have documentation showing whether or not I have the right to publish? The magazine they were in has since gone out of business, and the owner was hard to reach when it was in business (he was avoiding bill collectors, no doubt) and I don't know if I could reach him now. I'd hate to, because if he thought he could get some money out of this, he might fight me even if he had no right to stop me. Oh, one more thing I just realized may end up causing trouble -- I wrote them under a pseudonym. I would put them under my real name for a book, but would that cause concerns for a publisher? I mean, I don't have a document from the publisher stating that X is the pseudonym of Y. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 11/12/2007 12:45:24 PM | show profile First of all, I'm not an attorney. on the rights thing, I think you retain rights unless you sign them away so perhaps no contract should be a good thing. The magazine being out of business is a good sign as well. on the pseudonym, I'm not sure if that's a problem - do you have evidence that you submitted the materials -- emails, paystubs? Did other people know it was you? I changed my byline in order to avoid confusion with other writers of the same name. I could conceivably want to use some of that older material == there's evidence that was me: people knew it was me, paystubs, etc. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 11/12/2007 12:46:54 PM | show profile If you're in a position to assemble things into a book, then you should consult with an attorney who knows about publishing rights, etc. I'm sure within the MB ranks, people can make recommendations. Or check with Author's Guild maybe? |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 11/12/2007 6:59:13 PM | show profile The general rule is that the creator of the work owns all rights to that work except those that he has explicitedly assigned to another party in writing, so you're probably OK. |
| SillyRabbit | Posted – 11/12/2007 8:32:40 PM | show profile Thanks for the advice! |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 11/12/2007 10:34:38 PM | show profile One last thing: If at all possible, try to arrange the material so it doesn't seem like a collection of disparate columns. Collections tend to be hard sells. Good luck. |
