Re-using previously published story as the beginning of a novel?

Edwardian · Sep 3, 2017

I plan to submit a short story to a magazine/s. I might want to later use the story as the start of a novel. Would copyright and print rights with the magazines allow this?

Here are the links to the two magazines with the only relevant text I can find on their websites relevant to my question. The second is particularly vague.

What do you think?

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/Publishing.html#Copyright

2. By submitting a story to us you agree to our Terms and Conditions. Note particularly that by submitting a work to us you guarantee that you are the owner of the copyright to that work. We do not require any transfer of this copyright - by submitting a story to us you agree to grant East of the Web a non-exclusive licence to publish the work.

https://cricketmag.submittable.com/submit/17820/cicada-magazine-for-ages-14

Rights
Stories and poems previously unpublished: Rights vary.
Stories and poems previously published: CICADA purchases second publication rights. Fees vary, but are generally less than fees for first publication rights.

dpaterso · Sep 3, 2017

Typically a magazine publisher won't want you to show a story they've bought from you anywhere else, including a personal website, for six months after said story actually appears in their magazine. At which point the rights revert back to you and you can do what you want with it.

So technically yes you could have an overlap problem if you were to complete your novel containing this same story, submit it to a novel publisher, have it accepted and then released, before the contracted short story publication period with the magazine publisher expires (and if like Cicada's guidelines suggest, it could take up to a year before it actually appears, that's an 18-month wait).

I guess you have to weigh the likelihood of this happening and decide whether to include the short story in the novel or not.

-Derek

pdichellis · Sep 3, 2017

According to the market info you posted East of the Web is buying non-exclusive rights, so you could republish your story anytime you want. Cricket says the rights they buy "vary" so you'd need to know more. If they are buying "all rights" or "exclusive rights" you could be prohibited from republishing. Most likely, as dpaterso noted, if they buy exclusive rights it will be for a specific time period, probably a few months. This would be specified in a contract they send you for an accepted story, or you could query them to ask what rights they typically buy.

Good luck.

Edwardian · Sep 4, 2017

Many thanks.

Re-using previously published story as the beginning of a novel?

Edwardian

dpaterso

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pdichellis

Murder! You want fries with that?

Edwardian