First Article Sale and Q

[DennyK]

Hello,
After submitting an article and having it accepted in March of this year, I received the "Article Sold" email two days ago. Great! I am truly pleased and happy.
The purchase request was for full rights and much less than my Usage amount but I did accept the sale. I had written that article to see if I could actually write something someone wanted and to act on a long-held dream of being an actual author of something; possibly to outlive my life, so to speak.
I have no regrets in accepting the low offer, but I'm asking the community now if I should have asked for more or maybe given Usage rights for that amount instead of the Full Rights. Any thoughts from the Veterans here?
In any case, I am still pleased at the sale and am now in the process of cleaning up several more articles for submission while basking under the light of personal accomplishment.
Thank you all.

[jadedragon]

If you are happy to make your first sale and it motivated you write and sell more, the price was right

[DennyK]

You're right Jaded. Thank you.

[michaelsmoker]

I'm not a veteran, but other writers have told me that they set prices according to what rights they want to sell. If you want to sell usage rights only, you don't need to offer full rights at all. If you want to sell only for full rights, make your usage rights price at least twice as much as your full rights price. And if you're prepared to accept sale of whatever rights are purchased, just set usage rights cheaper than full rights.

You didn't say how much you got paid for the article, so I can't comment on whether you made enough money. One writer advised me to charge 10 cents per word for full rights, but I usually ask for 5 cents per word because I'm satisfied with that. My single-use price is usually 50% of my full rights price and my multi-use rights price is 75% of it. Sometimes I drop my prices if the article is seasonal and the season has ended or for a similar reason. Not sure if that approach works in the long term, but it has been helpful so far.

Michael

[DennyK]

Thanks Michael. That's just the kind of information I was looking for.
The article sold for only $15, but like I said, it had been sitting there for a long time.
I wonder how back and forth negotiations go between an author and a customer.
Merry Christmas.
Denny

[jadedragon]

You can't really negotiate. If you check the allow offers box you might get an offer. You must accept or reject, you can't counter offer. The buyer gets the final say if you accept the offer. An author accepted offer is not a sale, the buyer needs to actually make the purchase.

A sale at $15 is perfectly fine. Nothing to be sad about. That's about $10 in your jeans you never had before and it is because you sold your first article That's pretty awesome for a first sale.