You’ve been kind enough to answer several of my questions in the past and I thank you. Though I’ve been in the biz for awhile, I recently received something that was rather new.

I have had many articles published in a certain child’s health magazine going back years. I recently received an email from the editor of another magazine asking if she can reprint a few of those articles in her magazine and she had asked me what my reprint rate was.

Since I’ve never come across the term “reprint rate” before, I felt like a novice writer all over again (but I learn something new daily, I guess). So, how much should I charge as a reprint rate? I received $175.00 from the original zine for each published article, so is a reprint rate a certain percentage of what I had received originally? If so, what percentage would you consider a professional should receive?

Once again, I thank you for your help and for your newsletter.

Sincerely,

Joe K.

There is no standard reprint rate or percentage used by writers. Sometimes, writers get more from reprints than they did for the original article. It really depends on the magazine wanting to buy the reprint rights, and their standard pay rates for first rights. Knowing the latter will at least give you an idea of the ballpark their rates fall into.

If I were you, I’d get online and try to determine the standard rates the new publication pays. At least then you’ll know around what they’ll be willing to pay.

If you can’t find information on their rates on their site, you might be able to find other writers talking about them online. If you really want to get aggressive, write to one of those writers and ask them outright how much they earned writing for that publication.

If all else fails and you can’t figure out how much they pay, you can probably assume they pay very little. It’s really up to you how much you want to earn for reprint rights. Again, if it were me, if I couldn’t find their pay rates online anywhere, I’d probably quote them half of the original fee I earned and see what they say…but only after I tried all of the above first.