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Topic: Renegotiating a Work for Hire for more rights/pay
| Author | Message |
| spacedesign | Posted – 7/1/2008 5:33:50 PM | show profile | email poster I have worked for a magazine, Florida Design, for more than 1.5 years now and have always had to sign a WFH with each assignment. Its number one point was that I concede ALL rights-- ALL! No other contract I work under-- actual bona fide contracts, not WFHs-- attempt to steal such rights from freelance writers. With my latest assignment I did not believe I should have to sign away all rights. What is the magazine wants to do an anthology, as it sometimes does, and one of my articles is chosen? I believe I should get paid for another usage of my work. After all photographers and now Hollywood writers get paid royalties and all kinds of rights usages. Why should freelance writers be any different? Besides something you hear since grad school is never to sell all your rights. It's not like I can readily sell these architecture/interior design articles to another publication; I'm more concerned about the not-even-high likelihood that one of mine will be used by the publisher itself again. This magazine, as well as others, also don't pay for captions. For instance, it assigns me a 500-word article with 6 captions of 50 words apiece and I am stuck being paid for only $500, where in reality it's 800 words I've written and should be paid for. When I spoke to the editor with whom I always work she asked why I was now changing my mind about the WFHs. Candidly I replied that it was because I have more experience (have freelanced for four years now). My questions are two: If I just got a pay "raise" to $1/word three months ago, can I renegotiate for the real $1/word or at least a larger per-word rate? How do I get them to honor me with the rights I believe I'm entitled to? This tends to be an incredibly tight-fisted publication, and I'm concerned that they will throw me overboard for making waves. But I believe this industry deserves bigger respect and we won't get it without standing up for ourselves and our rights. Any advice or related experiences? |
| westsidestory | Posted – 7/2/2008 1:34:20 AM | show profile Yes. Decide what's more important to you, retaining your rights to republish, or getting more money. Then walk in and ask for either A or B. Be prepared to walk. Years ago, one of my biggest freelance clients began insisting I sign an all rights contract. "Every other writer" was doing it, they said. I said, sorry, can't do that, I'll finish out the month and no hard feelings. Apparently my work was popular enought with readers that they missed me...the publishers came back within two weeks and signed the contract I put together, which gave them print rights only. Not six months later I was asked by a book publisher for a compilation. As I had kept the rights, I was able to do the book and pocket a fairly nice advance as well. Fast forward a few years later...another client (famous glossy) insisted on all rights. I said fine, that will be $3 a word (what I figured given the ancillaries). They weren't happy but they signed the deal. You teach people how to deal with you. The lesson in each case is that you have to be prepared to walk away. |
| westsidestory | Posted – 7/2/2008 1:46:43 AM | show profile sorry - I meant to say I had sold only "first serial print rights in XXX market" in the contract. This meant I kept all other print rights, as well as electronic, which allowed me to re-sell the material to the book publisher. |
| spacedesign | Posted – 7/3/2008 5:21:03 PM | show profile | email poster WOW West side story. That's a terrific story! Good for you! I am prepared to walk, and I have given serious consideration of which I would prefer: higher rate or more rights. I'd prefer the former, especially because the likelihood of reprinting any form of that story later is slim. If, on the other hand, I had more pay, it would benefit me every time I did an article. I like the publication quite a lot, and we work well together; they both assign and accept my pitches, but in reality this pay rate works out to be quite poor. I just want both of us to be happy about the new pay/rights conditions. And I hope not to hear something like" Everyone else is getting paid that." Thanks for all your help! ------ http://senseofplacewriter.blogspot.com/ |
| spacedesign | Posted – 7/3/2008 5:21:03 PM | show profile | email poster WOW West side story. That's a terrific story! Good for you! I am prepared to walk, and I have given serious consideration of which I would prefer: higher rate or more rights. I'd prefer the former, especially because the likelihood of reprinting any form of that story later is slim. If, on the other hand, I had more pay, it would benefit me every time I did an article. I like the publication quite a lot, and we work well together; they both assign and accept my pitches, but in reality this pay rate works out to be quite poor. I just want both of us to be happy about the new pay/rights conditions. And I hope not to hear something like" Everyone else is getting paid that." Thanks for all your help! ------ http://senseofplacewriter.blogspot.com/ |
| westsidestory | Posted – 7/7/2008 11:21:14 PM | show profile well, good luck to you, too. The "everyone is doing it" excuse is typical but it's pretty lame. A nice response to that is, give me some names and phone numbers and I'll ask them why they think this is a profitable career move. If you want more dough, you can point out that you've got a track record, you understand their audience, and you and the editors get along. Tell them you have no desire to make waves, you just want to be compensated for work that somebody in Bangladesh probably couldn't do, or if that's not possible, than be able to retain ancillary print rights so you can make a decent living through selling the same article "outside of your market." Honestly, I don't think you've been thinking hard enough about how to re-sell content to web sites and international publications in your field. But you can't do that unless you've secured the rights to re-sell. With their blessing -- best case scenario. |
