by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’ve published a couple of posts about getting your character rights back from publishers. This enables writers to continue publishing new books in a series. In my case, I’d been allowed to continue my series, but I hadn’t been able to republish my backlist (the publishers still wanted to hold those rights).
My backlist is still being held by Penguin for one of my series (and another Penguin series doesn’t have a hope of released rights), but for another publisher I finally have the digital rights back to the first book in the Myrtle Clover series (as of July). I’d received print rights back some time back to the book.
If this all sounds rather complicated…yes, it can be. I regularly receive emails from traditionally published writers who either aren’t sure about how to go about asking for rights or who aren’t totally sure what to do after they get their rights back.
If you’re trying to get your rights back, see these posts of mine for a little direction:
Thoughts on Getting Rights Back
Self-Publishing a Series that Started in Trad. Pub
If you’re a writer who isn’t totally sure what to do once you’ve gotten yours back, here are some ideas (I’m working on most of these, myself).Continue reading