[PLUG] google docs

Michael M. Moore michael at writemoore.net
Tue Jul 28 15:18:14 UTC 2009


On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 23:16 +0000, TedKubaska wrote:
> 
> Agents tell him that he can only sell those FNASR if the work has never been published anywhere else. I think that Google doesnt want or care about owning those rights. But then the real question is whether after using google docs he can still sell FNASR. 

There is clearly no issue if he uses Google Docs and does not make his
document viewable by anybody and everybody.  You can selectively share
documents via Google Docs, so that only the people you identify can view
and/or edit whatever you share.  There's no risk that doing so would
have any impact on first-serial rights.  I think, also, that it is
extremely unlikely that making a story publicly available on Google Docs
would have any impact on first-serial rights, but if he's paranoid about
it you can at least assure him that limiting his works' availability is
perfectly safe.

First-serial rights are fairly specific and, for most fiction writers,
not really worth much in dollars.  At this point, only the New Yorker
pays what most people would consider real money for stories, and most
writers have about as much of a chance of winning the lottery as getting
a story published in the New Yorker.  Most other magazines, literary
journals, sci-fi magazines, etc., that publish any fiction at all pay a
nominal fee, unless the author is already well-known.  The value of a
first-serial sale for unknown or little-known authors is mostly
exposure, and resume-building so that the author looks more appealing to
a book publisher.  The days of competition among magazines for short
stories are long gone, as are the days when authors like Ray Bradbury or
Truman Capote could make some nice change from selling first-serial
rights even before they became famous.

There might be more of issue with electronic rights, but again I think
that's extremely doubtful even with a story that is publicly available
over Google Docs.  A service like Scrib'd might present more of a
problem, since that is more of a "publication" tool than a collaboration
tool (like Google Docs.)

-- 
Michael M.




More information about the PLUG mailing list