I requested this guest blog from Pat Brown because you'll learn from her what happens when your publsiher goes out of business, or sells to some other publisher.
Revising Earlier Novels, by Pat Brown
Earlier this year one of my publishers went out of business.
This happens frequently today—publishers exist on a very narrow margin of
profit and it doesn't take much to tip that margin into the red. So what
happens then? If you were smart you have a contract that spells out exactly
what happens under these circumstances. Usually, it's that the rights to your
works return to you, meaning they are yours to do what you want with.
In my case, I got the rights back to four books and one
novella. The publisher was even kind enough to send me copies of the formatted
manuscripts that are completely editable. So what do I do with these five
works? Turn right around and self-publish? I've considered self-publishing a
book more than once. So far I haven't. I like the luxury of someone else
editing my manuscript and preparing a cover for me, saving me the expense.
Can I find another publisher for it? Some publishers reject
re-publishing a work. They only want first rights. A little research online will answer that
question. I decided I was going to look for a new publisher(s). I've actually
gone through this before, except the publisher didn't go out of business, we
just mutually parted ways. The new publisher edited the old manuscripts just
like they would have for a new submission. In my case I think the books were
improved by the editing—another set of professional eyes never hurts. I was
also able to update the books' police procedures as both my own knowledge had
increased and some technologies had changed. Win-win all around.
Is there any reason to do more than window dressing? After
all, the novel was good enough to sell the first time, right? Why make more
work for myself? Except one of those
books is Latin Boyz and I've been itching to get the rights back for it for the
last two years. It never sold well; I believe it was not marketed well. Not
anything the publisher did, but the title was horrible—it made the book sound
like a gay porn—and I did something a writer should never do. I gratuitously
added sex scenes or added unnecessary detail to existing sex scenes. Not enough
to make it true porn, but more than the book called for. The story is actually
more a coming of age story about a young Hispanic man coming to terms with his
gayness and accepting the love of another man. None of that was conveyed by the
title, the blurb I provided or the cover. I hope to remedy that with a new
publisher.
I vowed to rewrite the whole thing. Then I took the opening
to my writer's critique group, where I got positive feedback but also an
interesting suggestion. The book is primarily written in first person and the
idea was thrown out that it might be more powerful if it was close third
instead. It was almost like a light went
off. Something had always bugged me about the book, but I could never pinpoint
any reason for the unease. Now I had an idea to explore. I went home and took a
good look at the manuscript and decided to commit myself to do just that.
Rewrite a 92,000 word novel, changing the main character's POV entirely. I made a new folder and renamed the file with
the working title Burn and launched a massive revision. It's too early to tell
if I'm on to something, but I have a good feeling about it.
Time will be the final arbiter.##
Pat Brown is the award winning author of gay police
procedurals under the pen name P.A. Brown, including the L.A. series featuring
LAPD Homicide Detective David Eric Laine and his lover Christopher Bellamere.
These include L.A. Heat, L.A. Mischief, L.A. Boneyard and L.A.
Storm. And the Geography series, featuring Santa Barbara cop Alexander
Spider and his lover Jason Zachary in Geography of Murder and A Forest of Corpses.
As GK Parker she is the author of two historical novels.
As GK Parker she is the author of two historical novels.
Her second historical novel is Indifferent City , set
in Los Angeles in 1929, in a time when the only difference between the cops and
the bad guys were their badges. LAPD officer Billy Brewster gets mixed up with
the wrong people in this gritty tale of corruption and love gone bad. A crooked
cop, a mysterious, classy dame; what could possibly go wrong?
GK Parker Website