Ask Jerry
Selling the same article to multiple markets
Asked by Heidi G on February 27, 2023
In your nonfiction course, the Big Picture Plan advises to "write a magazine article or blog post on it and sell it to as many non-competing markets as possible." That sounds great, but could you please say a little more about how it works? How do you determine that markets are non-competing? And how do you navigate selling the same article to multiple entities (and/or using it again in your book) without violating copyright?
Jerry's Answer
First, Heidi, you must determine what rights you're selling to the initial buyer. Just ask them straight out whether they're buying all rights or first serial rights and whether you'd be free to market the piece, perhaps slightly altered, to noncompeting publications.