First World Serial Rights

[Citanzero]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum - seems like a great community coming to fruition here.

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else already: does anyone know a good website for additional information about First World Serial Rights? I read what was written in the submissions section, but couldn't bring up much more on google after a quick search or two.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks and best wishes,

Joseph Turkot

[Scott H. Andrews]

One reason you may not find many hits on "First World Serial Rights" is that it's a fairly new variation. In the days of traditional print publishing, most US-based magazines bought First North American Serial Rights, covering the US, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. (If you google that, or its acronym FNASR, I bet you'll get tons of hits.)

But for online publishing like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, the readership extends far beyond just North America. Tons of people are online all across the world, and many of them speak and read English as a second language. So First World Serial Rights cover the entire world.

(The basic point behind any "First" rights is that the story can't be sold again as a new or unpublished story; it can only be sold as a reprint. That's important for short fiction because most magazines (including Beneath Ceaseless Skies) only want new stories that can't be found anywhere else, not reprints that have already appeared in another magazine. For novels, it usually doesn't matter.)