THE ART OF GETTING REPUBLISHED

‘In May 2022, my historical novel

Cupid and the Silent Goddess, set in the art world of 16th-century Florence, was republished by Page d’Or Books after being out of print for two and a half years,’ writes subscriber Alan Fisk.

‘Surprisingly, perhaps, getting a novel published for the second time can be even harder than for the first time.

‘Nearly all novels go out of publication eventually. When that happens, the rights to it should revert to you, and there should be a “reversion clause” in your contract setting out how this is to happen. If there isn’t, you can ask for the rights to be “reverted” to you, and be sure to ask to be able to use the published text when offering it to other publishers. A publisher may otherwise claim that their edited text belongs to them.

‘I’ve twice had the problem that a publisher has gone out of business, or simply disappeared, so that I couldn’t provide a statement of reversion of rights. In such a case, if you offer the book to another publisher, you must state those facts. They may not want to take the risk of being sued if the first publisher should emerge from the woodwork to claim that its rights were still in force.

‘Literary agencies seem very reluctant to take on previously published books. I don’t know why; perhaps some agent will write in to Writing Magazine to explain.

‘There can be reasons why you may not want to try to have a novel republished. In the case of one of my historical novels, new research has brought up facts that mean that my story could simply not have happened.

‘Another reason applies to one of my novels which was rejected 57 times over nine years before eventually being accepted and published. Looking over it now, I realise that it was the 57 people who rejected it were right to do so!’