Navigating a Right of First Offer

RainyDayNinja · Jan 8, 2011

My first short story was recently published (yay!), and now I'm looking at the possibility of reprints. I've been looking over my contract, and it seems the only issue I need to worry about is the "right of first offer on... first foreign serial rights." The trouble is that I'm not sure how to approach other markets while respecting those rights. Do I need to ask permission before submitting elsewhere, or do I just need to submit and then ask permission once it's accepted? Or is there something else to it?

johnnysannie · Jan 9, 2011

Most short fiction sells for "First North American Serial Rights" (in the US and Canada). Sometimes they buy ALL RIGHTS which means the publications owns any future use of your work and you can't submit it anywhere else.

As long as your contract states that you just sold first rights with first option on first foreign rights, you should not have any problems re-selling it but you have to make it clear to any new potential markets that the piece has been published, when and where, and what rights are available.

If your story has just been published - congratulations on that, by the way - most other publications aren't going to want to publish something that fresh, especially if the story appeared in an online version of their publication or to a wide audience.

Navigating a Right of First Offer

RainyDayNinja

johnnysannie