About full rights and author name

[SEDeary]

Hello!

I'm a newbie here and I'm trying to find some information.

When I write an article and sell it under the full rights license, can I request that the buyer REMOVES my name from the article? Or is that going to happen anyway? I ask this because,if the owner of the article adds something that I don't agree with, I don't want my name related to that content.

Also, I submitted and sold an usage article and forgot the byline. Is that a serious mistake? How do I fix that? I'm sorry if these questions are too obvious. I'm quite new at freelancing and still learning.

Thanks in advance

Sarah

[CRDonovan]

Hi Sarah,
If you want your name included in an article, you include it after the title. So the title, next line By Your Name. If someone purchases full rights, they can keep your byline in or not, as they choose. Unique and Usage customers must include that byline, they don't purchase the right to change the article in any way.
However if you don't want your name attached, simply submit the article with no byline. Just use the title as header, no need to say By Author.

[SEDeary]

Thank you very much for your answer! It's very helpful.

And how about the article I already submitted? Can I add a byline now? Or is it too late, since it's already been sold?

Thank you again for your time and answer.

[jadedragon]

You can't add your byline after the article sold. Bylines are not worth much anyway.

[SEDeary]

Ok. Thank you both very much!

[EricTroy]

I too would be concerned about someone adding things to an article that they purchased for full rights and then keeping my byline, thus attributing it all to me. I have at least some "reputation" in my field outside of just writing articles for sell so I have to consider that!

My thinking is that it is unlikely that someone would keep the author's name in an article they purchased for full rights. It wouldn't make sense to do so. Even if they were publishing it on a site just under the anonymous "admin" thing, they would still want the article to appear to be a product of that site if they paid for a full rights.

I agree that the byline is not really worth much so I have decided not to include them in the articles I submit here. If your purpose is getting your name out there are plenty of ways to do that and also include links to your sites or online profiles. My thinking is that my work at CC is to sell articles, plain and simple. Not to promote myself. But I would be very interested in what other authors here do in terms of bylines.

Thanks for the wonderful discussions here. They have been very helpful.

[JD]

This is a good point. I have never included my name in any article I have sold. Yet a few articles which have been bought have in fact appeared with my name alongside them - and not my pen name, my proper name (not too sure how that's happened in some instances, but that's another matter). I think sometimes that buyers like to add the writer's name to the article as it gives it gravitas, although they could of course choose any name and put it to the article. The first time this happened, I was a little irked because the customer had edited the article in such a way that one sentence didn't actually make sense. I think that CC should have something written into the contract that states that if a customer alters an article in any way, then they can't associate the author's name with it, unless that author gives permission. It's a bit like being quoted as having said something you never said.

Jane

[Celeste Stewart]

A long time ago, it turned out that our real names were revealed to customers, but CC fixed that once discovered. ANother way customers can get our real names is if your MS Word settings have your name associated with it. For example, if you go into your document's properties, under author, it will say whatever name you entered in your Word program.

[JD]

Thanks, Celeste. That's good to know.

Jane