Some publishers are only interested in certain formats, such as electronic publishing, or magazine publishing, or anthology publishing, and they pay only for those rights.
Book publishers usually are interested in as many rights as they can get, including movie rights, foreign-language rights, electronic rights, gaming rights, reprint rights, as well as book publication rights. The rights they don't actually use, such as movie rights, or gaming rights, they are willing to sell (usually if the author or the author's agent can find someone to buy them) and they will split the money 50-50 with the author. The more powerful the author or the author's agent is, the more non-book-publishing rights the author will be able to keep from the book publisher, so that when they sell, the author will get more than half the money for them. New writers don't usually have that kind of power, so the best they can do is ask that the rights will revert to the author after a certain amount of time has passed (this is called a "sunset clause" in a contract, and it is really worth fighting for).
You want to sell as few rights to a publisher as you possibly can. Never sell all rights unless you are writing under a work-for-hire arrangement (which means you are agreeing up front to sell them all rights).
You should try to only sell first serial rights to a magazine and first anthology rights to an anthology. If possible, try to only sell first North American serial rights to a magazine published in Canada or the US and first British serial rights to a magazine published in the British Isles. If you can't do that, try to only sell first English language serial rights instead of first world serial rights. Magazines usually insist on first electronic rights as well, and writers don't have much choice about that.
Sell as few rights as you can and try to get them as specific as possible. I remember hearing once about a guy who was able to break up the gaming rights to a game he created, and he was able to sell something like 50 different kinds of gaming rights because he made sure his contracts were very specific.
Whatever you do don't sell the copyright. Sell permission to publish in a certain format for a certain period of time (so that you specify when the rights will revert back to you).
Selling the right to publish something you've written is the only way you can make any money as a writer, so you have to be very protective of those rights or you will lose.
I hope this helps.
Discussion forums that are invitational and password-locked access (e.g. Liberty Hall, Codex, OWW, Critters) do not count as publishing. Blogs - even friends-locked blog posts - DO tend to count.
NEVER publish a story on a website or blog unless you are prepared to only ever sell reprint rights for it.
[This message has been edited by honu (edited January 02, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by honu (edited January 02, 2009).]
I wrote a fantasy story that could also be considered a children's story, so I'm considering selling it to kid's markets. Ever heard of "Highlights for Children"? I know I read it when I was a kid. I looked up their submissions page. They pay pretty well BUT they don't just buy printing rights, they buy the copyright. I was shocked when I read that on their guidelines! There's no way I will ever sell them anything unless they change that!
But I'm with you, steffenwolf.
So there are circumstances where you wouldn't retain copyright to your work. But you have to be careful. If you came up with a great caracter for a story and sold it to this market, you wouldn't then be able to use that character elsewhere - if it became incredibly popular and successful, tough. They'd be the ones owning it and able to get other writers to produce stuff using that character. You'd have no say, and no share of profits.
First, it must be presented to the public without restriction.
-Creative properties offered for critique, review, or in consideration of publication don't meet this test.
Second, it must be in a fixed, tangible form.
-Arguably, a digital publication not being in a tangible form, such as printed on paper, might not meet this test. The legal debate is ongoing. However, any given digital publisher may exercise their rights as though a digital publication does meet the test. There's a few extant legal precedents to support it. Kurt Vonnegut is one author who went against Random House in Rosetta Books v Random House to successfully assert a separate publishing right for digital publication not detailed in his contract with Random House.
-A previous version of a substantially revised or rewritten creative property does not necessarily meet the test of being in a fixed form.
Third, it must be offered voluntarily.
-Someone else taking a creative property belonging to another and representing it as their own does not meet this test. The same applies to publishing a creative property without the voluntary consent of the owner. A contractual agreement to publish does.
Fourth, it must be for compensation.
-Monetary compensation or other recognition meets this test, including, but not necessarily so, publication in a critically selective venue for acknowledgment of merit, in other words, not a vanity publication.
These tests are one side of the legal definition of publication. What weight any given publisher places on them is a matter between the publisher and the owner of the creative property rights. Whether publication on a personal Web site, an off-the-beaten path publication or defunct publishing site, or in a vanity publication consumes first rights is a matter of whether the creative property rises above it's legacy and whether it has appreciable circulation "legs" to justify overlooking previous marginal publication.
Edited to add overlooked points.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 16, 2009).]