When your novel is no longer selling copies...
You revert rights and re-publish!
A harsh reality for all published authors is that eventually—inevitably—sales of your novel will slow.
For the vast majority of us, the slow will begin a few months after launch (perhaps to be jolted to life by a paperback release a year later), and then steadily trickle off over the coming years, until sales grind to an almost-halt.
A popular book may prolong this downward sales trend for quite awhile—maybe even a few decades—but even bestselling books experience an eventual slow of sales. Very few things—be them books or albums or movies—remain best-sellers forever.
It is of course possible for a book to stay in print—especially if it becomes a modern classic—but for every title that experiences this type of evergreen shelf life, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of titles that don’t.
We may all quietly acknowledge this reality, but very few of us publicly announce when the slowing trend is happening to us, because frankly, it’s not comfortable to discuss. No one wants to shout from the rooftops that their book has been taken out of print and is only available as an e-book now… or that it’s still available as a paperback but moves only a dozen copies every six-month royalty period.
Still, I don’t think there’s any shame in hitting this low-to-no-sales milestone. It happens to almost all of us eventually, and there’s a silver lining to the “bad” news: Once your book is selling poorly, you can get your publication rights back.1
The rights reversion threshold
Your publishing contract will define a threshold at which rights can be reverted back to you, the author. It’s typically dependent on time period (E.g.: “No sooner than five years after first publication”) and income derived from sales or sometimes just sales (E.g.: “Author receives less than $250 in royalties over two consecutive periods” or “Author sells fewer than 200 copies over two consecutive periods.”)
Exact language will vary, so check your contracts. (Sidebar: Always look for this clause when signing a new contract. Without it, a publisher could presumably stop producing physical books when it is no longer cost effective for them, but keep your book “in print” digitally for as long as they see fit.)
If your novel has met the rights reversion threshold, “congrats,” you can now request to have your rights reverted. Congrats in quotes, because understandably, this is bittersweet. But there are perks to a reversion! With publication rights back in your hands, you can self-publish the novel and pocket the majority of the royalty, as opposed to the only 25% on ebooks and 6-10% on physical copies that you get under most traditional publishing deals. Even if your book maintains low sales and doesn’t bring in a ton of income, I’m of the opinion that 70% of an ebook sale going into your pocket is far better than only 25% going to you.
Timeline at-a-glance
Like many things in publishing, this process takes time, and reversion won’t happen automatically. You have to request it, in writing, and following a verbal/email confirmation, the Publisher will have to get paperwork in order.
In my experience, this takes several months. Yes, I am going through this bittersweet milestone myself with my Taken Trilogy. I asked my agent to request the reversion back in the spring of 2023. The rights officially reverted to me in late summer.
What makes it official? Paperwork. In my experience, it was a letter/PDF from the Publisher, listing out the Works that were being reverted.
Once that ‘acceptance of reversion’ letter comes through, the publication rights are yours again, and the e-book(s) will disappear from online retailers seemingly overnight. The Publisher can continue to sell any physical editions of the Works that it still has on hand (books in warehouses, with retailers, etc), but once those quantities run out, that’s it. The pub can’t reprint the book or keep selling it.
What happens next?
It’s up to you. Some writers decide to re-release the novels on their own, either exactly as is or with some minor edits. Others decide to heavily edit or rewrite/reimagine the world, while some may expand on a series. Of course, you don’t have to re-release the book. It’s totally fine to sit on the rights if you’re not comfortable going the self-publishing route and/or you simply feel that the book had its time in the sun and you’d now like to focus on other projects.
However, if you end up re-releasing the books, here are a few things to consider:
You will need to buy/license the original cover/jacket art from your publisher or create/purchase new artwork yourself
This is because the Publisher owns the copyright/license to the original artwork, not you. You only reverted the publication rights for the story/novel—the words. For many authors, it is more budget friendly to purchase new cover art than license it. If you have the skillset, you could also design your own.
Be sure to ask your editor/publisher for final files of your novel(s). Whatever version you have on your computer is likely not the cleanest version, since copyedits and pass pages edits were input on the publisher’s end. (In my experience, the most recent files that my publisher provided were typset PDFs.)
Be prepared to hire a book formatter to layout your novel, or, if you feel capable, tackle it yourself. (I’ve been using Vellum to format and generate my books, and I find it very easy to use and with just enough bells and whistles for my liking.)
Hold on to that ‘acceptance of reversion’ letter from your publisher. You may need to provide it during the self-pub process to prove that you do indeed hold the rights to self-publish this previously released novel.
You will need new ISBNs for every format of any novel you are re-releasing.2 (Releasing a book in paperback and e-book? That means you need two ISBNs. Want to also include hardcover? You’ll need a third.)
What does this mean for the Taken Trilogy?
I’ll be re-releasing the complete Taken Trilogy in the coming months. The covers have been redesigned by yours truly. I licensed new photography, but you’ll notice that otherwise, these updated covers still honor the original art in color scheme and overall vibe. (I love the original covers very much, and why fix something that isn’t broken?) The stories also remain largely the same; I did not do any heavy editing or rewriting on these.
Even still, I’m excited to give them a second life. I’m hoping the trilogy can continue to find new readers... And if you were one of the readers who emailed me mid-series, confused as to why the sequels suddenly disappeared from online retailers, this is why! Sit tight just a little longer, and the books will be available again soon.
Here’s my planned publication schedule:
Taken, book one (pb, e) and Stolen (companion e-novella) — January 30, 2024
Frozen, book two (pb, e) — February 27, 2024
Forged, book three (pb, e) — March 26, 2024
If you have questions about rights reversion—or anything else covered in this post—please drop them in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer anything that comes up.
Until next time,
Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.
Obligatory disclaimer that this post is about traditionally published books and situations where you, the author, sell your print rights to a third party, allowing them to publish your story. (If you self-pub, the print/publication rights have been yours all along and remain yours if/when sales slow.)
I'm SO excited for these new editions of the TAKEN Trilogy! And I'm so excited for all the people who are about to discover this wonderful series for the first time. <3
Hi Erin, thanks for sharing about your experiences with both trad pub and self pub! I always find your newsletters so helpful. I'm currently in the self pub process as well and wondering if you have used Ingram Spark to release wide? That's the one I'm planning to use this time. I've been trying to read up on it and what the process is like vs KDP which is what I used last time I self pubbed, years ago. Also wondering if you've ever had your self pub books toured or marketed for you? I will look through your newsletter archives for more on self pub too, in case you already talked about how this has gone for you in the past! Thanks!!