Submissions > Your Rights
Below are the terms for publication that apply to all works published by Vitality Magazine. You must agree to these terms during the acceptance process.
We retain first English serial rights to your piece.
This means that we have the right to be the FIRST publication to publish your piece in the English language in any medium. Your piece cannot have ever been posted online, self-published, or published by any publication. (We make exception for pieces that were published online in a small-scale, personal way, such as to your facebook page, or a personal blog, as long as it was viewed by less than 50 people, as evidenced by likes, notes, reblogs, or comments, and as long as that post is deleted from the internet before you submit to Vitality Magazine.)
We also retain exclusive publishing rights to your piece for 180 days.
The 180 day period begins from the time your piece is actually published, not from when it is accepted for publication. You cannot publish your piece elsewhere or post it online or self-publish it during those 180 days. After that period, the rights return to you, and you are free to do with your piece whatever you wish, but no other submission can ever claim first publication rights to your piece – aka you can never claim it has “never been published” when submitting to other publications.
We retain the right to each issue of our magazine as a whole.
We can distribute copies of your work at our discretion (including print copies at a later date) as long as it remains part of the collective whole of the issue in which it was published. Meaning, for example – we can sell print copies of Issue 3, or sell digital copies, or offer a digital copy of Issue 3 for free in an archive, or anything we like as long as we’re distributing “Issue 3.” We will not distribute YOUR PIECE as its own standalone work, in an archive or otherwise.
Additional rights applicable to art and images.
Vitality retains the right to use your art and images to promote the magazine through ads and other digital promotional uses. (Typically – we will use it to promote your work or the written piece you illustrated) We can use your image at our discretion for this purpose during the exclusive 180 days. After that period, we will only use your image on ReadVitality.com.
We have the option to buy anthology rights to your piece at a later time.
Compiling pieces into anthologies is something we are looking into doing in the future, and we have the option to purchase anthology rights to your piece at a later time.
The below information is applicable only to pieces accepted for publication between 05/01/15 and 06/07/15. It is being kept for archival/reference purposes only.
We retain nonexclusive online archival rights to your piece.
Vitality intends to publish your piece on our website, either behind a subscription paywall or free to all users. Pieces will remain on Vitality’s website for as long as the website is operational. However, this is nonexclusive, meaning you are free to self-publish or sell your piece to other publications as long as you do not claim exclusive rights.
The below information only applies to pieces published before 04/01/15. It is being kept for archival/reference purposes only.
We retain exclusive first serial rights to your work if it is accepted to Vitality Magazine. Meaning: we have the right to be the FIRST publication to publish your piece. We retain the rights to your piece for 180 days after publication. You cannot publish your piece elsewhere or post it online or self-publish it during those 180 days. After that period, the rights return to you, and you are free to do with your piece whatever you wish, but no other submission can ever claim first publication rights to your piece – aka you can never claim it has “never been published” when submitting to other publications.
Vitality Magazine is a print magazine with digital copies. We retain the right to each issue of our magazine as a whole. We can distribute print AND digital copies of your work at our discretion as long as it remains part of the collective whole of the issue in which it was published. Meaning, for example – we can sell print copies of Issue 1, or sell digital copies, or offer a digital copy of Issue 1 for free in an archive, or anything we like as long as we’re distributing “Issue 1.” We will not distribute YOUR PIECE as its own standalone work, in an archive or otherwise.
Added 11/13/14: For artwork and comics: during the 180 days in which we own the first publication rights to your piece, we are free to use portions of your artwork (up to 35% of the image) to advertise for your piece in our magazine, or the issue it is in, on our website and social media pages (for example: tumblr, facebook, or twitter). Covers, however, we are free to use after the 180 days to represent the face of the issue, either on our site, or elsewhere, as long as it is always used to represent that issue, and never posted as its own piece.
We have the option to buy the anthology rights to your piece at a later time.