I’ve had contracts on my mind lately, having signed a few for short stories in the last few months, so I thought this would be a good time to start a thread to share a couple links on contracts and talk about what the various terminology means. When the publisher sends you a contract to sign, do you know what rights you’re signing over to them? First rights? Exclusive rights? Electronic rights? All rights? And what does that even mean?
First, copyright and publication rights aren’t the same thing. (And be wary of editors and publishers who don’t know the difference in terminology.) You automatically own the copyright to whatever you create, and what you’re “selling” to the publisher are publication rights – the right to publish your work under certain terms that are outlined in the contract. (I put “selling” in quotes because it doesn’t matter whether you’re receiving a monetary payment or just agreeing to let them publish your work for no pay – the same terms apply either way.) You might be giving them the right to publish your story for the first time anywhere, the right to publish it again, or the right to publish it in a different form than it’s appeared previously (like as an audiobook instead of in print).
Rather than recap what’s already been broken down pretty well elsewhere, here’s a basic breakdown of the different categories of publication rights:
Things can get a little murky now that things like ebooks and podcasts and Creative Commons licenses are in the picture, but a good number of publications are now spelling out in plain English in their guidelines exactly what they can and can’t do with your work if they agree to publish it. (And if you don’t understand something, ask them.)
A couple things worth noting - First, that contract you’re sent isn’t written in stone. If the terms being offered are unreasonable, you can always offer different terms instead and see if the publisher’s willing to work with you.
Second, if you see the words “all rights,” “work for hire,” or “made for hire” in the contract, always try to negotiate for something else. “All rights” is just what it sounds like. Everything. You may technically still own the copyright, but you don’t have any publication rights left to sell, so you can’t do anything with the work anyway.
And “work for hire” or “made for hire” means you’re turning over the copyright itself to the publisher, and they can change your work, publish it without crediting you, do whatever they want with it – in short, they own your work flat-out (for example, if you wanted to reprint it somewhere else, you’d have to ask their permission). This isn’t common in typical publishing contracts for fiction, but it does show up sometimes, and it should be a red flag when it does. Again, offer first rights instead (or whatever’s appropriate for the situation) and see if they’re willing to work with you. If not, walk away – or at least think long and hard before you sign.
SFWA also has some good info, including sample contracts, here:
http://www.sfwa.org/category/sample-contracts/
(Got other links, or better ones? Post 'em!) 
