Do you reuse content and ideas in different publications?

defyalllogic

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If you work for multiple publications and they want similar things from you, how do you handle that?

if you write for cooksRUs and CookCOOKCookie and they both ask you to attend and cover the National Cooking Contest... how do you handle it. Is it okay to accept payment or a press pass from one and cover it for both?

If you know baking tips and both pubs want baking tips articles, It would seem wrong to just publish the same article twice, but what about the same tips but in a different article?

Should you only write completely original content for each and never overlap recourses, contacts, or products?

that seems like it's making more work for the freelancer...
 
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WildScribe

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that seems like it's making more work for the freelancer...

I find this extremely offensive. You're getting paid twice, and you think writing two articles is an unfair amount of "more work". Excuse me?!

If you are writing for two competing magazines or websites, you should not write the same or similar articles unless you're okay with never working for either of them again. If you are writing two similar articles for two NON competing magazines (for example, yoga for your hands for a yoga magazine and a rock climbing magazine) you should still write two different articles (unless you are selling reprint rights for one, and doing it CORRECTLY) but you can recycle the same tips and ideas. And just to be safe, a lot of established freelancers suggest you get new quotes or different sources anyway.

Reprints are a whole different story, and you have to know what rights you have retained and whether there is a waiting period (first rights, 6 months exclusive, for example).
 

defyalllogic

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it wasn't meant as offensive. There's no freelancing manual about how original content works when you're just suppose to blog about topics, just individuals blogging about blogging. some say it's okay to rewrite other people's articles and call it yours because you rewrote it. that's definitely sketchy and not okay.

and by more work, I don't mean to say it's not worth it if that's the way to do it. And I was more thinking about parsing contacts and ideas and resources and making sure nothing overlaps. it seems like that would make it harder to work in competing areas, but not worthless or silly.

it makes business and ethics sense. it just also seems like there are conflicting views.

There are so many blogs and niche sites looking for contributors but don't have traditional publishing structures set up. Not everyone signs a contract for freelance work. just deliver the content and everyone's happy. With it being so easy to casually enter a market, it's also very easy to misunderstand the rules and accepted etiquette
 

WildScribe

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it wasn't meant as offensive. There's no freelancing manual about how original content works when you're just suppose to blog about topics, just individuals blogging about blogging. some say it's okay to rewrite other people's articles and call it yours because you rewrote it. that's definitely sketchy and not okay.

and by more work, I don't mean to say it's not worth it if that's the way to do it. And I was more thinking about parsing contacts and ideas and resources and making sure nothing overlaps. it seems like that would make it harder to work in competing areas, but not worthless or silly.

it makes business and ethics sense. it just also seems like there are conflicting views.

There are so many blogs and niche sites looking for contributors but don't have traditional publishing structures set up. Not everyone signs a contract for freelance work. just deliver the content and everyone's happy. With it being so easy to casually enter a market, it's also very easy to misunderstand the rules and accepted etiquette

Since you're in "Freelance" forum and not "SEO and online writing" forum, and since you used the term "publishers" not "content sites" or "blog sites" I assumed that you meant magazines or newspapers. Unfortunately there is a lot of rampant plagiarism and a lot of gray areas when it comes to internet publishing, not because the laws are any less strict but because there are more ways to break them and fewer people who care to check.

When I worked as a blogger for a series of wedding blogs, I wrote unique blogs for every post, every week, no overlap.