Selling All Rights: When and why

Selling all rights to a manuscript means that, when you have signed the contract and received payment your piece of work is no longer yours to use.

When you sell other forms of rights you can, if you wish, also sell the work to different markets. For example, if you sell First Australian Rights you can go on to sell Second Australian Rights, or First UK Rights, or Electronic Rights and so on.

However, once you’ve sold All Rights all of these options to you are gone.

There are many publishers who ask for All Rights, but the area that seems to request them most is the American magazine market. Sadly, this is also one of the biggest English speaking markets for articles and short stories.

So obviously, you need to be sure before signing a contract that you have made the right decision. From personal experience I would only consider selling All Rights if:
1)You are new to freelance writing and want to get a few pieces of work in print so that you can build up a list of published articles.
2)You want to make your mark in a particular genre and having your work in this publication will increase your chances of being accepted somewhere else.
3)You feel that you can reproduce numerous manuscripts of the same quality in a similar style.
4)You believe your research can be suitably rewritten into another article so as not to infringe on the All Rights contract.
5)The money you are being paid for your work is enough to compensate you for giving up all other rights.
6)The topic of your article is so current that it will be too dated to use again.
7)You are desperate to see your name in print and can’t find a better market for your work.

Of course, everybody’s decision is their own and everybody has different reasons for their choices, but before signing away all the rights on your manuscript ask yourself one question.

‘Is what you’re receiving an equal trade for your time and skill?’