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vcmwOk, so when I was, um, 17 and 19 the events that this question is based in transpired.
I was a young, very naive type writer-person. The internet was not full of the knowledge about the writer world that it is now full of, at least, not anywhere I was hanging out online in 1997-1999.
I sold two poems to a very nice online magazine. They even paid me. I suppose, if I hadn't been too struck by this fact to cash the check, that the check would almost certainly not have bounced, though I've never cashed the check because it was a PHYSICAL PROOF SOMEONE WOULD PAY FOR MY WRITING and it was not going to leave my hot hands. I still have it under my bed in a plastic box.
About a year, year and a half later, a different online magazine contacted me and asked if they could reprint the poem. I said sure.
Now, I'm pretty much sure that what I sold was first rights only, and it had been quite a while (I've reread the very nice contract they mailed me a couple of times as I puzzled guiltily over this). And magazine number one never said anything to me or removed the poem from their archive or anything (it's still there, if you scroll way way way back), but I've been wondering ever since I started to learn more about publication type stuff...
#1
Should I have asked Magazine #1 before giving Magazine #2 the go ahead to reprint the poem?
Even if it wasn't something I was legally required to do, is there some professional standard of courtesy about this kind of thing? I'm sure if I went to like, literary poetry classes I would have known that kind of thing, but I was just out of high school. They tell high school poets to do things like submit to Teen Ink which copyrights the works in its name and gets the right to republish them in any format forever (really, read their submission guidelines.)
#2
Should I worry that my (possibly) fiendish behavior in allowing internet Magazine #2 to reprint the poem in question is the kind of author faux pas that is going to haunt me ten odd years later if I ever actually start finishing and submitting works to folks again? This sounds really stupid because it is the kind of stupid newbie question that FAQs by kind authors address, but honestly, this KEEPS ME UP NIGHTS sometimes, usually when I'm PMS-ing or what have you.
Ok, gonna put my head between my legs, breathe deeply, go get a cola from the machine, and try to stop procrastinating working on the Ugly Novel on my Thumb Drive, which I've been avoiding for a solid month.
Stupid heroine, stupid un-hero, stupid mob in the streets with torches. *grrr* I think I read too much Dumas and Prisoner of Zenda as a kid, not to mention too much Generic Epic Fantasy. Bad characters! No biscuit. *sigh*
PS You can tell I'm really worried about all this because I carefully didn't specify poem or magazine name or whatever. It was online long enough that in 2003 when my new boss googled my name, that was the first search result, though. Kinda embarrassing cause it was an erotic poem, but fortunately he quite liked it, so that was ok.
I was a young, very naive type writer-person. The internet was not full of the knowledge about the writer world that it is now full of, at least, not anywhere I was hanging out online in 1997-1999.
I sold two poems to a very nice online magazine. They even paid me. I suppose, if I hadn't been too struck by this fact to cash the check, that the check would almost certainly not have bounced, though I've never cashed the check because it was a PHYSICAL PROOF SOMEONE WOULD PAY FOR MY WRITING and it was not going to leave my hot hands. I still have it under my bed in a plastic box.
About a year, year and a half later, a different online magazine contacted me and asked if they could reprint the poem. I said sure.
Now, I'm pretty much sure that what I sold was first rights only, and it had been quite a while (I've reread the very nice contract they mailed me a couple of times as I puzzled guiltily over this). And magazine number one never said anything to me or removed the poem from their archive or anything (it's still there, if you scroll way way way back), but I've been wondering ever since I started to learn more about publication type stuff...
#1
Should I have asked Magazine #1 before giving Magazine #2 the go ahead to reprint the poem?
Even if it wasn't something I was legally required to do, is there some professional standard of courtesy about this kind of thing? I'm sure if I went to like, literary poetry classes I would have known that kind of thing, but I was just out of high school. They tell high school poets to do things like submit to Teen Ink which copyrights the works in its name and gets the right to republish them in any format forever (really, read their submission guidelines.)
#2
Should I worry that my (possibly) fiendish behavior in allowing internet Magazine #2 to reprint the poem in question is the kind of author faux pas that is going to haunt me ten odd years later if I ever actually start finishing and submitting works to folks again? This sounds really stupid because it is the kind of stupid newbie question that FAQs by kind authors address, but honestly, this KEEPS ME UP NIGHTS sometimes, usually when I'm PMS-ing or what have you.
Ok, gonna put my head between my legs, breathe deeply, go get a cola from the machine, and try to stop procrastinating working on the Ugly Novel on my Thumb Drive, which I've been avoiding for a solid month.
Stupid heroine, stupid un-hero, stupid mob in the streets with torches. *grrr* I think I read too much Dumas and Prisoner of Zenda as a kid, not to mention too much Generic Epic Fantasy. Bad characters! No biscuit. *sigh*
PS You can tell I'm really worried about all this because I carefully didn't specify poem or magazine name or whatever. It was online long enough that in 2003 when my new boss googled my name, that was the first search result, though. Kinda embarrassing cause it was an erotic poem, but fortunately he quite liked it, so that was ok.
