Five Ways
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If you're test driving your new Kindle,...

If you're test driving your new Kindle, here's a collection you could try on it….I'm just saying.

Amazon.com: Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight eBook: Cat Rambo, Lawrence Schoen, Michael Livingston: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight eBook: Cat Rambo, Lawrence Schoen, Michael Livingston: Kindle Store

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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."

~K. Richardson

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Let's Retain ALL the Rights!

Picture of a handwritten pageOne of the questions being raised repeatedly on a discussion board I participate on is the question of electronic rights. Should a magazine be able to buy a story and display it on their website in perpetuity without additional payment? Does it make a different whether or not it’s behind a paywall? If there’s no additional payment, when should rights revert? What happens with something like an anthology that is in electronic form and hence won’t go out of print the way a hard-copy edition does?

I’m presuming that most people reading this know that normally when you “sell” a story to a publication, what they’re actually buying is the right to publish it in a particular form. You, the author, retain any rights not spelled out in the contract. You can (and I encourage you to) sell the story again as a reprint, and you may want to look at forms like audio or in another language.

This is something that’s still very new, and it’s not something that’s been factored in when lists like SFWA-qualifying markets were put together. It’s not mentioned on sites like Ralan.com or the Submission Grinder. As a writer, though, you need to be aware of what you’re selling.

Take some time to skim through the contract and find out what the publication is buying. What’s the “exclusive period,” the period where they are the only ones that can print it? What forms are they planning to release your work in? Here’s a Columbia Law School resource that may be helpful in trying to decipher legalese.

If you’re publishing, how do you feel about perpetual rights? Is the horse already well out of the barn as far as that goes, or can writers push back on the practice of acquiring perpetual rights without payment?

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

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WIP: Doctor Fantastik Part IV

Something in Liam’s demeanor had told him already, but the Doctor pretended to be surprised both times the waitresses told him of the relationship between the cook and Ellie.

“They was to marry, come next year, Ellie said”¦”

“She kept it from her mother ““ Efora wanted her to marry her third cousin Lark Nittlescent. Nice favored boy, and well pocketed, but bland as custard”¦”

That interested him.

Ellie wouldn’t have liked bland, indeed. Her menu featured quirks of taste and savor and spices that sometimes felt like blows, but ones that left you tingling with satisfaction. He knew that without her, what had come to the table was only a shadow of what it could have been, but she had designed the recipes, and they were as individual as signatures. As he ate, he had put together the strands, as though he were talking to her in his mind, drawing her out, finding out how she felt about fighting, or politics, or love.

Love. There was a dish on the menu called “The Cook’s Left Hand” and he thought, somehow, that it was meant as commentary on Liam. It was flavored with cinnamon, sometimes called “the forbidden spice” for reasons he was unsure of, which was an odd combination with the fish’s firm white flesh. Sour berries, no bigger than a sparrow’s eye and green as olives, had surrounded it. Somehow that combination of flavors, which should have seemed unsettling, mingled together in a way that enticed the tongue, as though flavored with desire itself.

She had loved Liam. Liam had seen the advantages of a partnership with her, at the least, and had perhaps even returned her love, just buried it so deep in sorrow that the Doctor could not see it. Although the boy seemed to have felt strongly enough about Kim.

How, the Doctor wondered, had Kim felt about Liam?

Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

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