The Second (or Third?) Time Around

 

Last Saturday I posted a column here at SleuthSayers about a story of mine that was reprinted several times, in different magazines, books, etc., after its first publication. As a result, during this past week, I received several emails from fellow writers asking me to do a followup post just about reprints. How often do they happen, how much can you earn from them, how and where do you market them, etc.

This request came at a good time, because I had no idea what I was going to write about today. Anyhow, here's my response.

First, there are two kinds of reprint opportunities. One's the four-leaf-clover, blind-luck kind that comes out of the blue, thanks to no action or initiative of your own. These are the best kind of reprints because they're usually more prestigious, result in higher payment, and require no effort on your part. A good example is when/if your story happens to be selected for an annual "best-of" anthology, like The Best Mystery Stories of the Year. Those are seen by a lot of readers, and--in my experience--pay around $500. Your story might also be chosen for reprint by a foreign or specialized publication, one you might not even know about until you've been contacted by that editor or publisher. The pay for those projects is often decent as well. All you have to do is sign a contract allowing them a one-time use of your story and send them a copy of it--and sometimes you don't even have to send a copy, if they already have the issue of the publication (or the book) in which your story originally appeared.

The other kind of reprint opportunity is the one that you find in the wild, on your own. You gather what information you can about the publications that might be receptive to previously published stories, then you study their submission guidelines and submit your story to them along with a cover letter, just as you would when marketing an original story. Then you cross your fingers and wait for a response. If your story's accepted, the payment for this kind of reprint varies all over the place, as you might imagine. But I have occasionally made more money from those than from the original piece. And you can do this over and over, so long as you never relinquish "all rights" to your story. (By the way, here's something that took me a while to learn: you cannot surrender all rights accidentally; it must be done via a contract. So it's not something you have to worry about.)

What are the markets for reprints? They're the same three as for original stories: magazines, anthologies, and collections.

Magazines that feature reprints are few and far between, these days. One is Thema, the New Orleans literary journal that's been around a long time. I've sold them only original mystery stories, but their guidelines say they'll also consider reprints. Another is Crimeucopia, a UK-based anthology-like magazine. All seven of my stories that have appeared there had been previously published, and editor John Connor is kind and professional and easy to work with. Shotgun Honey also accepts reprints, or at least they did four years ago, when I sold them a previously published flash mystery story. The nonpaying but longtime markets Kings River Life Magazine and Mysterical-E also consider reprints.

Anthologies are usually a better bet than magazines for reprints, and they usually say in their guidelines whether reprints are allowed. Anthology editors' opinions vary: some want only original stories, stories no one's ever seen before, but others are happily open to reprints because (they say) those stories are proven quantities that have already been vetted and accepted for publication elsewhere. Be aware that anthologies, like magazines, usually pay less for reprints than for original stories, which is understandable.

The last of the three, a collection of a writer's own work, is a logical place for reprints. The publisher of my short-story collections actually preferred reprints, for the same reasons I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Do make sure, though, that the collection contract states that you will still own the rights to the individual stories. 

NOTE: Another recent reprint market, although it's neither a magazine nor an anthology, is Storia, also known as Storiaverse. Most of what I've sold them are original stories, but they've also published one of my reprints. I'mvnot sure what their payment for reprints is now, or how long it is before they return rights to you for the story, but at one point it was $750 per reprint, and rights would revert to you after ten years.

Here are a few more points/hints/tips about the marketing of reprints, also known as Giving Your Stories a Reborn Identity. 

1. When you see a group of markets presented as they are in places like Publishers and Other Forms of Insanity, try searching those market listings by typing REPRINTS in the "Find" box at the time of the page. This should quickly show you which of those listings will consider reprint submissions. I used to do that often at the Ralan's Webstravaganza website, but alas, they gave up the ghost several years ago.

2. It's usually easier to sell reprints of older stories than those published more recently. Some guidelines even state that they'll only consider stories published more than a certain number of years ago.

3. Try selling your original stories to print publications first. When you later re-market those stories as reprints, they're often easier to sell than stories that originally appeared in online publications.

4. When selling a reprint that has already appeared in more than one place, put in your cover letter that "this story was first published in ABC Magazine." That way you can be truthful without having to say "this story was previously published in ABC Magazine, X Magazine, and Y Magazine." Shouldn't make a difference, but it could.

5. Sometimes a story needs to be tailored a bit before trying to sell it as a reprint. When that happens, it is not enough to just change the title and the setting and the characters' names and some things about the plot and then call it an original story. It's still a reprint. What I do in that case is say in my cover letter something like "a modified version of this story first appeared in XYZ Magazine."

6. Specifically, what I usually say in a cover letter for a reprint is, "This story was originally published in the July 20, 1997 Issue of Dead & Gone Magazine. Since they acquired first rights only, I hope you'll want to use it in a future issue of Here & Now Magazine." Be ready to send a copy of the original contract to the editor if requested, but I have so far never been asked to do that.

So that's it. What are your thoughts, and history, on this subject? If you're a writer of short stores, do you actively seek out reprint opportunities? Have you had any good, or bad, experiences there? What have been some of your best reprint sales, and reprint markets?

In closing, here's something I've mentioned before at this blog--and it's still true. Don't let those stories that you've worked hard on sit idle after publication. When the exclusivity period in your contract runs out--they're rarely longer than six months--get the stories you're proud of back out there and into circulation again. Why not?

Remember, short fiction is 100% recyclable.