NOTES OF A CONTRACT KILLER

by James Lincoln Warren

On Saturday I got a check and a contract in the mail from Penny Publications LLC, d/b/a Dell Magazines, for a short story I submitted to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The check wasn’t huge, but it was certainly welcome: $720.00. Considering that the story it was paying for was less than 8000 words, that’s an excellent rate, about 9¢ a word.

The contract was my copy of the legal terms governing the publication of the story1 countersigned by Dell’s rights and licensing person, finalizing the sale. It’s a pretty brutal little story involving multiple murders, so I guess you could say that this document makes me a contract killer.

What’s in the contract is interesting. Nowhere does it say that it is paying for the story (referred to as the “Work” in the contract) by the word. Instead, it is paying for specific rights for the Work as a whole. The final amount is determined by two combined sums, the first English language publication rights and non-exclusive translation rights ($575.00 — about 7¢ a word, which is still pretty good) and non-exclusive license to allow others to reprint the work in its entirety, at 25% of the first amount ($145.00 — the remaining 2¢).2

There are a couple of restrictions. As far as first English publication rights are concerned, that includes electronic publication, since there is an electronic version of Alfred Hitchcock. The e-version, though, is restricted to nine months’ availability after the on-sale date, which is a good thing for the author. Most web-based e-magazines never remove a story from circulation, unless the website itself is discontinued for whatever reason. The non-exclusive licensing rights include all magazines and newspapers in the world not owned by Dell, in whatever language. So if Dell gets an inquiry from Tashkent to reprint the story in the Uzbek tongue, they can authorize it and I’ve already been paid for it.

Notice, however that I’ve been paid separately for the translation rights, which were included in the first sum, and the licensing rights, which were paid for in the second sum. This means that they can translate it themselves without licensing it, or conversely license it for foreign publication without translating it. But either way, these rights are non-exclusive, and I’m always happy to sell non-exclusive rights. After all, if I get an inquiry from Kampala to publish the story in the Luganda language, I can negotiate with the interested party directly and not worry about Dell at all.

Not that I should proceed with impunity in all my doings, because in the second section of the contract, Dell reserves certain rights without paying for them up front. That part of the contract indicates what Dell will pay if the reserved rights are exercised. What rights are they?

(1) First worldwide English anthology rights ($100) or first North American English language anthology rights ($75).

(2) Subsequent English anthology use ($50).

(3) Foreign language anthology rights ($30).

(4) 50% of royalties if the work is selected by a book club and published.

(5) First performance rights, i.e., movie, TV, songs, etc., payment to be negotiated.

(6) The right to license performance rights for a fee to a third party, 80% of the fee going to the author.

(7) The right to pay the author for performance rights if the author receives another offer, at that offer’s amount. So if Universal wants to buy the film rights and offers me 75¢ for them, Dell can buy the rights first at the same price, and Universal is out of luck.

(8) Merchandising rights, i.e., toys, T-shirts, calendars, paper dolls, action figures, theme parks . . . for 50% of the fees.

Lest you think that Dell is acting the part of a Sith Lord by insisting on these rights, please think again. I love all the folks at Dell and it is their policy never to interfere with the good fortune of one of their authors. When we here at Criminal Brief printed A Criminal Brief Christmas as a prize, we had to get permission from Dell to reprint some of the stories in the anthology. They cheerfully waived their rights when we told them what the project was all about.

As another illustration of their goodwill, in this last contract I lined out those four clauses mentioned above regarding performance rights, because I had been approached by someone else before I sent the story to Dell and I wanted to hang on to them. They agreed, without penalty or comment, to forgo those rights and initialed the contract where I had lined out the applicable language to show they were in concord with it.

Dell also reserves certain other rights, which you would have to be a fool not to grant, as they accrue to the author’s benefit: the right to illustrate the Work, and the right to publicize you, your bio, and your likeness in all advertising and promotion. Oh, throw me in dat briar patch!

The rest are pretty straightforward, too: if you use copyrighted material in your work, you and not they are responsible for obtaining permission for its use; you accept legal responsibility for everything legally objectionable contained in the Work; you agree to give them credit as the original publisher of the Work.

What they don’t do is copyright your story for you. In fact, they will indicate that you own the copyright to the story when they publish it.

Other companies may—well, I should say almost certainly do—have different contracts reserving different rights (or not) at different rates, but as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen are the standards in the mystery crime fiction world, I would call Dell’s contracts the standard as well.

My advice is, if you get one, sign it. There’s nothing like getting that check in the mail to make your day.

Kittehs

In case any of you are wondering about how the feline domestic situation has progressed since my report last week regarding the alienation between the sisters due to Lizzie’s trip to the vet, I am happy to report that since Lizzie got her stitches removed and no longer has to wear that stupid clown collar, Emma and Lizzie are as devoted to each other as before.

I love my cats.

1. I had earlier received two copies of the contract when I was informed by Dell that the story had been selected for publication, which I then signed and sent back to them. This was my personal copy of the contract being returned to me. [↩]
2. Actually, 25% of $575.00 is only $143.75, but I’m good with the extra buck and a quarter. [↩]