"First World Electronic Rights"<-- what does this mean?

No, you're fine.

SYW is set up so that getting a crit won't violate your saleable rights. As long as you haven't published the piece on the 'net anywhere else, you're fine.

One of the cool things about First World Electronic Rights is that you still have your print rights intact and your story might make a dandy print mag submission (as long as they know you do not have First Electronic Rights to sell)

Also, you may have agreed to the magazine archiving your work - if so, you may wish to have a time limit on that so you can sell electronic reprints.

PS- Congrats on the sale! (got my fingers crossed for you)

RRK said:

I submitted a short story to an e-Zine yesterday that requests "First World Electronic Rights" if it purchases a story. I posted the story to the SYW forum here earlier--does that violate this requirement? The SYW forum doesn't seem like it should invalidate any kind of first-publishing rules, but I just want to check.

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Congratulations and well done.

Rights

RRK said:

*cough* OK...I really wasn't trying to misrepresent myself here, I just apparently can't speak the English language (not good for my future prospects as a writer...). I haven't actually had the submission accepted by the e-Zine, I just wanted to check and make sure I hadn't disqualified myself. Sorry for my mistake!

(Can't wait for the day when I really am published, though!)

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If no contract has been signed, everything is up to the editor. AW is not set up so that an editor must consider the piece unpublished. The posting site here has a public password, which is the same as no password.

But, honestly, there are no rules and no laws governing this. If an editor wants to consider a piece previously published because you've posted it anywhere on line, for any reason, he has every right to do so, password or not. If he doesn't consider it published, no matter where or how, he has this right, as well.

It's always up to the editor. Some care very much when a piece has been published on any critique forum, most care not at all. The best thing to do is to simply be honest about the history of a piece, and allow the editor to decide for himself.

What James said. It's important to note that "first rights" really has no place in copyright. Copyright law has a very specific meaning for "publication" that doesn't apply to the rights issues at all. Mostly "first rights" is a term that was invented by publishers of magazines and newspapers and so is very subjective. Note that one of the LEGAL definitions of "publication" deals with the author's intent. But for the purpose of a magazine paying money to be the FIRST to publish, well . . . intent doesn't matter much.

Keep in mind that someone buying a story intends to sell the story to the paying public. If the paying public can get the story for FREE elsewhere, then the story has little value. It's always best to be up-front with your editor. You don't have to mention it in your query, but if the ezine makes an offer, it's a good idea to tell the editor that the story appeared on a writing site DURING THE DEVELOPMENT STAGES, but that the final story is unique and hasn't been seen (provided that's true, naturally.) That's usually enough for an editor to be okay with it. But they might not be. That's always the risk a writer has to take.

But never lie, because that'll come back to bite you. Good luck!

MOST ezines say that a password protected critique room or workshop is acceptable. Check the guidelines carefully. If I'm submitting to an online market, I usually have the tread deleted. You can PM a mod and ask them to do this. But I would never lie to an editor about the fact that that particular story had been seen in a crit room in a rough form.

Password

Soccer Mom said:

MOST ezines say that a password protected critique room or workshop is acceptable. Check the guidelines carefully. If I'm submitting to an online market, I usually have the tread deleted. You can PM a mod and ask them to do this. But I would never lie to an editor about the fact that that particular story had been seen in a crit room in a rough form.

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But if the password is public, then the forum is not password protected.

I agree...

here with JR.

The password is public here at AW, which is why I rarely post anything, and would not post a short story. As JR says you really can't tell an editor it has been password protected when anyone can read the password and use it.

That pubic password means public access.

But this keeps it from being indexed by search engines, which these magazines say in their guidelines is their primary interest. Like I said, I generally pull a story down, but I haven't had an objection yet.

Is it...?

indexed by search engines which matters?
Most editors want an unread story, one that is new to readers and you can't honestly claim that an AW SYW story has only been read by the 10 members of your crit group.

I write a couple of monthly column on short story markets which puts me in contact with a lot of editors and editorial guidelines. Some of those guidelines/editors do say that a story online in a password protected, small crit group is not published, and therefore acceptable. Others say it depends on the group and want details.

At AW you can see in the number of visits column (is that the correct name?) that there are a lot of people who look in at SYW but don't comment. And AW has a large number of members and visitors. I don't feel I could post a story in SYW and truly claim it was only in a select password protected crit group read by a few members.

engine

Soccer Mom said:

But this keeps it from being indexed by search engines, which these magazines say in their guidelines is their primary interest. Like I said, I generally pull a story down, but I haven't had an objection yet.

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Stopping search engines is fine, but this is only one concern. The concern is simply over how many people have read a story. Period. And password or not, anyone can copy the story and spread it all over the internet. All it takes is one reader to start the spread.

And how many have read the story on the forum? How would you like to pay six or eight dollars for a magazine, only to find you've already read one of the stories. All it takes is one letter from an irate fan to ruin an editor's day.

As I said, most editors don't worry too much about a story that's been posted on a critique forum, largely because the story will likely be somewhat different by the time it's published, but some editors care a great deal. It is a concern, and a public password is really not much better than no password at all because it may stop indexing, but it does not stop people.

I agree that I've never posted a full story in it's final form and I wouldn't.