Digital Publishing Q&A
Last week’s Fiction Editor’s blog discussed ‘People’s Friend’ fiction appearing on digital platforms.
This has raised questions for contributors, so I’ll try to answer some here.
“This all revolves around what’s in my contract, but I don’t believe I have ever signed a PF contract.”
All contributors to ‘The People’s Friend’ sign a contact prior to first payment and publication.
If you can’t remember signing a contract, or can’t find your contract, we can check back for you.
“I didn’t know DC Thomson could sell my work to anyone outwith DC Thomson.”
The majority of our contributors have signed a contract offering Standard Contributor Terms. When we buy a story or poem, that contract allows DC Thomson the right to publish that work for the first time.
After first publication, either party can publish and use the work as they like without further payment to the other.
Thus, both DC Thomson and the author can exploit the work in any format/media elsewhere.
“What if I have sold exclusive rights to my work to another vendor?”
As both author and DC Thomson retain the right to sell work on following first publication by us, neither party would be in a position to guarantee or offer exclusive rights to a third party.
We have a set of standard terms which are the norm in the industry – offering rights on a non-exclusive basis to both parties, namely the author and DC Thomson.
“Why have you started publishing digitally now?”
With fewer readers buying print publications, we hope that publishing digitally will lead to a greater awareness of the quality fiction readers can find in the pages of the ‘Friend’.
“Will authors be advised of future digital publication?”
We ceased sending date-of-publication emails in May of 2023, to allow our smaller team to use that time for expediting story responses.
For this reason, we don’t plan to alert authors to digital publication, in the same way that authors are not obliged to inform us when they sell work on to a third party.
