Reversion of rights denied due to POD

aruna

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OK this is a new one for me. My two books Peacocks Dancing and Speech of Angels are not available any more, at least, not new from HarperCollins. They are only available on amazon through various sellers.

Anyway, back in January 13 I sent them a letter requesting a reprint as per the contract, with the intention of reversing the rights. I let things slip and forgot about it, then wrote them a couple of weeks ago asking for reversion or rights, as they had not reprinted.

During 2013 HC and I were in discussion about the e-rights to these two books, which they wanted. I decided not to give them.

Today I got the following email:

I’m afraid we have no record of receiving the earlier letter of 29th January 2013 where you requested a reprint of your novels.

As far as we are aware, the only matter under discussion with my colleague xxxx over the past few months, was the status of Electronic Book rights. Under clause 26 (6) of the head agreement these EBook rights reverted back to you some time ago and are now yours to exploit as you wish.

However, we are granted the rest of the rights under the agreement for the full term of copyright and under Clause 15 we are not eligible to revert such rights until a title becomes unavailable. Seeing as both titles are available via print on demand we are not in a position to revert these rights.


This is actually rather confusing and also troubling. AFASIK, the books have never been published via POD. Can a published deny reversion of rights under the grounds that the book is AVAILABLE in POD? THat would mean rights reversion need never be granted!!!

Also I am not aware that they ever had the e-rights to those books so how could there be a reversion of e-rights? Now running of to dig up that old contract.

Also, it's easy to say the never received the letter. Stupidly I di d not send t by registered mail. Should have done so, and by email as well. Looks as if that train has left.
 
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aruna

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OK, checked the contract. I did grant then e-rights back in 2002 but the contract states that e-rights revert automatically to me if they fail to exercise them within 4 years. But the rest of the letter is very worrying ---.
 

aruna

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Thanks for the blog post -- I guess back then we had no idea what was in store!
So I guess that's that... it's not the end of the world; just that I will be revising the books for their digital release and making a few changes. So the digital and print versions will be different.

ETA:That post was written in 2007. I had to smile at this:

What's the purpose behind S&S's new policy? I'm guessing that S&S is gambling that electronic rights will become hugely valuable at some point in the future. Right now they aren't, and I don't believe that anyone, even the most vigorous prognosticators, knows how or in what ways they may become so.

I guess S&S had the right instinct!
 
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Thanks for the blog post -- I guess back then we had no idea what was in store!

I'm sorry; it's frustrating in the extreme. And I think we'll see more weasel clauses in contracts on all fronts—including etailers TOS.

One thing to keep in mind as you re-issue the ebooks—what might you add to make the ebook more interesting for those dithering between the POD print version and the ebook?

There's price.

But maybe you can add a forward or afterword or some deleted scenes?
 

aruna

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Well I've just had one of them converted to digital format and will start editing soon. I haven't read these books for 10 years and I'm sure I'll be horrified! :)
 

aruna

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Oh! I just remembered something. Yes, it IS bad. The books did not earn out their royalties so if the POD starts selling when the digital comes out I won't see any money for a long time. :(
 

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Oh! I just remembered something. Yes, it IS bad. The books did not earn out their royalties so if the POD starts selling when the digital comes out I won't see any money for a long time. :(

The POD version, if they do offer one, will by its nature have a high cover price.

And the chance that they will have kept the files up to date so they can easily send them to be printed is slim.

So make your editions better.
 

aruna

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That is true. I asked for the files in digital form and they didn't have them! I had to have the whole book scanned and then converted with OCR (remember that convo we had ages ago for the other book?).

My new version will be so much better.
 

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Aruna, you really need to get the agent who dealt with this contract to sort this out for you.

Agents can do wonderful things for their authors--and even if you've now terminated your agreement with them, they are still the best person to sort this particular problem out for you.
 

aruna

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The problem is that they are not my agent any more. The actual agent who did the deal has retired and I don't know any of the people that are left, and as they won't have any profit from this I am reluctant to ask.

I think the best is to turn to the Society of Authors --- again. They have been wonderful in the past.
 

aruna

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Well, I have written to my contact at the Society of Authors.
I have since noticed this: the POD copies are only available on the HarperCollins website. They are not offered for sale on Amazon or any other retailer. I don't believe they have sold a single copy. I'm hoping that that gives me a loophole of some sort.
My worry is that, should the book I've just published, or future works, sell well, that HarperCollins will just do a new print run and the books will be perpetually available. This is very aggravating.
 

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It's a dodge, this. The publisher knows full well that it violates the spirit of the reversion clause. The introduction of short-run digital printing is largely motivated by rights retention.

I'd certainly ask the SoA to take this up for you.
 

aruna

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They really are very naughty. Even after granting me reversal of rights for the first book, they secretly published a print on demand version -- without a contract. I told them to stop and they did.
 

aruna

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The Society of Authors is getting involved. They have written the CEO of HarperCollins. This could get interesting. I am definitely going to fight it.
 

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I'm not all that surprised by this. Publishers have a powerful incentive to hold onto rights, since maintaining digital editions online (which costs them next to nothing) allows them to leverage the long tail of their enormous backlists. They can and do use the vague rights reversion language of older contracts to make that possible. This is why it's so important to make sure that contract termination language ties reversion to sales or royalty minimums.

A few years ago I discovered that one of my long out-of-print books had been digitized by Simon & Schuster and put on sale in a POD edition. Luckily I'd reverted rights a few months before (obviously the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing at S&S) so I was able to deal with it pretty expeditiously. But this is a good example of a publisher quietly bringing its backlist back into circulation, and since it's happening with no fanfare and no notification to authors, it's definitely something authors need to be aware of.

Hopefully the SoA can sort things out for you, Sharon.

- Victoria
 

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My initial reaction was I can't believe they'd do that, but after a second of that, of course I believe it. Good luck, Aruna!
 

aruna

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Just wanted to say that the SoA lawyer has sent me a draft of her letter to HC and it looks as if she really has found a loophole, due to the wording of the contract--I can't say more than that now but I forwarded it to Victoria and I am very, very hopeful! :)
 

cwschizzy

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Things such as this always make me wary of going the traditional route. Thankfully, I still have some time to choose between traditional and self.
 

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Things such as this always make me wary of going the traditional route. Thankfully, I still have some time to choose between traditional and self.

cwschizzy, it's "trade publishing", not "traditional publishing"; and if you have a good agent behind you, this really shouldn't be an issue.
 

aruna

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The thing is, back then when I signed the contract nobody could imagine that in just a few years we'd have POD as well as e-books. That's the danger- all those contracts signed in those days probably didn't have a protective clause preventing things like this from happening, because agents couldn't see into the future. These days there WOULD be such a clause, so there's no danger.

However, the wording in the contract does make me optimistic. Fingers crossed!
 
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Cathy C

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I feel for you, Aruna, and hope the SoA will get it fixed. My own agent made some key changes to the reversion clause of our later contracts because of the POD thing we missed in the first one. Fortunately, I'm very happy with Tor and they're being good to me in terms of reissue (they're planning on re-releasing several of my early ones, with new covers and new promos in trade paper with a new spine identifer as urban fantasy over the next few years) so it's not a big deal for me right now. :Hug2: to my wonderful editor for standing behind the books.