[Barrera]

> I spent 22 hours, 18 minutes, and 47 seconds writing and editing “India World” across 42 sessions in Google Docs. (Not including hours more spent editing on paper, revising the story at workshops, or reading critiques.)

Given the quality of the work, I suspect that 2x-5x that many hours were spent on developing and revising the story (the parenthetical part). So let's call it 66 hours total.

Later:

> 8/27/2020 - RUOXI FROM TOR.COM EMAILED TO BUY THE STORY! They offered $1422.80 for exclusive digital, audio, and ebook rights for one year, non-exclusive afterward. Likely publication: early 2021. I said yes!

So, ballpark $20/hr. Some commenters have noted the low pay for this kind of work. How it's a labor of love rather than a living. And Tor apparently pays top dollar. On top of the fee, there's a profit sharing program, which starts to sound pretty good. But again, this looks to be the ceiling.

What's more interesting are the non-financial terms. The author can sell the work to others after one year. Depending on whether the author retains copyright (seems to be implied), this could be a pretty interesting way to go. I'm thinking about things like expansion into a novel, movie or other derivative works, for example. The acceptance letter doesn't quite make it clear how this works. How does it work?

[jamesjyu]

Yep for any reputable publication, the rights revert to the author after some reasonable amount of time. Then they can sell option rights or expand etc however they see fit. (If a pub asks for rights in perpetuity be VERY wary!)

Optioning for TV or film is usually the most lucrative, but can be very difficult, especially for new writers breaking into the field. This is especially true for short stories. One big exception is Arrival, which was based on Ted Chiang’s short story, which have paved the way for other short stories to get optioned in similar fashion.