Monday, April 14, 2008

Electronic Pub Homework!!

What I Think About Electronic Publishing Rights:

Basically, it seems that rights get a bit murky when publishing online...There can be First Electronic Rights and also First Print Rights. But if you publish online and have simply transferred "First Rights" then it looks like that's it--your First Rights are gone. Exclusive Rights or Exclusivity is when a publication can print your work only for a certain amount of time. Even if you just have a poem of your on a website--if you grant someone else exclusivity you're supposed to take it off your own website...hmm. What I want to know is who is making these rules? Okay, I'm not going to talk about all the endless rights discussed in the blood and ink article. But I will say that in the last few weeks, I've looked at countless online journals and in most cases, never saw any information about rights--not even in the Guidelines sections. Perhaps most journals only let you know what rights they acquire after they choose to accept your work?? Hmm...shouldn't this information be more readily available for those who wish to submit online? Maybe this is one of the reasons some people are trepidatious to do so--they don't really know what they're getting into...

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