Rights are different than copyright. Be careful not to confuse them. When you sell “First Rights” to a publication, you are offering one-time rights to publish your material before you send it to another publication. Sometimes these are called First North American Rights, which includes the U.S. and Canada, or First North American Serial Rights if it is a serial publication.

Once your manuscript is printed by the publication to which you sold first rights, you may then sell “Reprint Rights,” often called second rights. When you sell reprint rights, your duplicate manuscripts can be sent out simultaneously to many different publications. Try to avoid selling to two publications with overlapping audiences, however, such as two periodicals or take-home papers published by the same company or denomination.

When you sell first rights or reprint rights, you still own the rights to that work. After it is printed, the rights revert back to you. Selling reprint rights doesn’t affect your rights in any way. Someday you may want to put that material in a book.

The copyright registration is effective on the date of the receipt in the Copyright Office. For the material written after January 1, 1978, your copyright lasts for seventy years after your death. For manuscripts you wrote before that date, your copyright is for twenty-eight years plus a renewal for forty-seven more for a total of seventy-five years.
Once a copyright expires, the work goes into public domain. The public may use it at no cost at that point as long as the copyright isn’t picked up and re-registered by your heirs.
Also, public domain only applies to the original work. If material is revised or updated, it may not be in public domain. So be sure to check your sources.

If you need information or guidance on legal matters, such as disputes over the ownership of a copyright, suits against possible infringers, the procedure for getting a work published, or the method of obtaining royalty payments, it may be necessary to consult an attorney.

Most magazines are copyrighted, and their copyright doubly protects your personal copyright. Newspapers are seldom copyrighted, although syndicated columns are protected. Government publications are not copyrighted either. If you write a book, the publisher will register your copyright; but make sure he registers it in your name, not the name of the publishing house.

If you wish to copyright your material as a safeguard, send a copy of the material, a registration form, and $35 if filing electronically. See www.loc.gov/copyright for information and forms. Or send a paper copy to: Publications Section, LM-455, Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20559. The charge is $50. The telephone number is 202-707-3000. The hotline number to request forms is 202-707-9100. For a general packet on copyright registration request #118. You can register as many of your articles, stories, and poems as you like under the same copyright, as long as all the material is sent to the Copyright Office at the same time.

What is a copyright? A copyright is a way to protect something you create, whether writing, painting, or drawing. A copyright gives you four specific rights:
1. Copy the work.
2. Take excerpts to use elsewhere.
3. Sell selected rights to the work and make money from it.
4. Perform or display the work.

What can you copyright? Anything that is your original work: articles, poems, stories, pictures, songs, grocery lists. Anything you write down can be copyrighted except ideas, concepts, and titles. Anything regarding the expression of ideas can be copyrighted.

Since the laws were changed in 1978, you do not have to register your work with the copyright office to hold a copyright on it. Once your original material comes off your printer or pen, you own the copyright on it. If someone plagiarizes your work, however, and you want to sue him for copyright infringement, then you need to register your work with the copyright office in Washington, D.C.

Another item I feel is important for your professional image is letterhead stationary. Subconsciously, editors are more impressed if your cover or query letter is typed on your own letterhead. There are a number of paper companies as well as office supply stores that stock four-color stationary. You can run it through your own laser or ink-jet printer to put on your letterhead and the body of your letter. If you have a color printer, you can type your own letterhead, complete with graphics. I use light beige paper, which I think looks professional, but you can use white paper just as easily. Even if a publisher requests a query letter by e-mail, I still use my letterhead stationery, which I keep electronically on my computer.

Business cards are another item you will need. These are convenient to hand out at writers’ conferences to editors and other writers with whom you want to keep in touch. These, too, can be created and printed on a laser or inkjet printer. Again, you can use four-color cards or plain white, depending on your budget. Also you can get these professionally printed economically today at local office stores or on websites such as www.overnightprints.com, which is the one I use. I think it’s helpful to have your picture on your business card. That way if an editor met you at a conference, seeing your picture may trigger a remembrance. After all, you only look as professional as your query letter, business card, or manuscript does.

I can’t overemphasize the need to back up your work. I back up my current projects on a flash drive, and then once a month I back everything for that month up on an external hard drive. Computers crash, and even if they don’t, you will most likely upgrade and not transfer all your old files over to a new computer.

Thus, I suggest always keeping a paper copy of everything. Buy a box of file folders and label them. If you are like me, you would rather write than organize files, but lack of organization can cost you precious hours of trying to locate information on an article you wrote several months or years ago.

Label one file for each project you are currently working on. Once an article or book is finished, continue to keep a file folder for it. Keep your research notes in it as well as tear sheets of publishing credits. Any research you have done for an article or book should be labeled in a manner that will help you find it quickly should you decide to write a second article or book on the same subject at a later date.

Also, set up files for ideas that pop into your mind, ones you don’t have time to develop yet. Whenever you find an article or story on a subject you intend to write on someday, place it in a file folder under that category.

I was recently looking for information I wrote ten years ago, and it was only on a 3 ½ inch floppy disk. I don’t even have a drive to read those anymore! Thankfully I had a hard copy I could scan back into my computer.

People often tell me, “I don’t consider my writing a business. I just write for fun.” Yet, whether writing is a vocation or an avocation for you, treat it as a profession. Ideally, you should have a desk and a filing cabinet dedicated solely to your writing—an entire room is even better! Many writers, however, do not have this luxury.

Also, it is important to have a comfortable chair that adequately supports your back. Writing requires a lot of sitting. Be sure to get up and walk around at least once every hour, and look away from your computer screen every fifteen minutes for a moment. The better shape you keep your body in, the sharper your mind will be for creating and editing. Try to work out at least three times a week for 40 minutes to an hour each time. Also be sure to exercise your fingers and flex your hands. Many writers developed carpal tunnel syndrome, and you want to avoid that.

Even if you don’t have an actual office location for your writing, you can still get the job done if you keep things in order. If you don’t have a metal filing cabinet, you can purchase a cardboard one at an office supply store inexpensively. Although you are writing on a computer today, it is still important to keep a hard copy of your work. Computers have a nasty habit of crashing, and often this happens before a person has everything backed up.

For six sessions we have talked about places where we should use the comma. Now let’s talk about places where the comma may be omitted.

In a series whose elements are all joined by conjunctions, no commas are needed unless the elements are long and pauses are helpful.

Example: Is it by Beethoven or Brahms or Bach? Of course it would not be wrong to say:
Is it by Beethoven, Brahms, or Bach?

When elements in a series involve internal punctuation, or when they are very long and complex, they should be separated by semicolons.

Example: The brown, fuzzy-wuzzy bear; the black and white panda bear; and the snowy-white, fat polar bear were all friends.

When an ampersand is used instead of the word “and,” as in company names, the serial comma is omitted.

Example: Dooey, Soakum & Howe

These examples end our seven sessions on commas.

Other Uses of the Comma

The comma denotes a slight pause. The effective use of the comma involves good judgment, with ease of reading as the main goal. A comma is used when a slight pause is intended.

A, usually follows “yes,” “no,” “well,” and the like, at the beginning of a sentence if a slight pause is intended. Likewise, a, follows an exclamation “oh” or “ah” only if a slight cause is intended.

The abbreviation, “etc.” is both preceded and followed by a comma when it is the final item in the series. Such English equivalents as “and so forth,” “and the like,” are usually treated the same way. Example: Cats, dogs, parrots, etc., must be confined to cages when flying in airplanes.

A comma follows names or words used in direct address as well as in informal correspondence.

Example: Friends, I’m here to tell you an important story.
Example: Dear Mary,

Commas in Lists of Items

According to The Elements of Style and The Chicago Manuel of Style, when listing three items, a comma is placed after the first and second items (Paper, pen, and writer). Some publishers omit the second comma, but they won’t fault you for not knowing their style. The important thing is to be consistent, so the editor can match the style sheet to your manuscript. Plus, if the list contains multiple words, it can be confusing if you don’t add the second comma. (His pets consisted of a long-haired cat, a short-haired dog, and a very noisy parrot.)

The exception to this rule concerns the name of businesses such as law firms which usually omit the last comma (Dewey, Sokum and Howe).

To further complicate things, if the list of items includes commas, they should be set off by semi-colons (The blank, white sheet of paper; the black, fine-line pen; and the ready, spirit-filled writer).