My non-fiction book topic reveal and cover sneak peek!

Katlyn July 6, 2021

Transcript from video:

I am so excited to talk to you today about my first non-fiction book release and it’s coming out pretty soon. So today I’m going to reveal the topic, title, and give you a bit of a sneak peek for the cover. Are you ready? This book came out of the culmination of my publishing experience over the past two years.

[00:00:22] Now, the topic of this book is: book rights reversion. And the title of said, book is ‘Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms’. Now, if you’re wondering what rights reversion is, I’m going to talk to you a little bit about it before I go more into my book. So in publishing contracts, a reversion clause basically gives the author an opportunity to take back their book rights after a certain amount of time, and most likely a certain threshold.

[00:00:56] For example, in your book contract, it may state in your reversion clause that you can ask for rights reversion five years after the book has been published. And maybe in the last 12 months, it hasn’t sold more than 250 copies. That’s just an example. Some contracts will have a monetary threshold. So say five years past a publication date, you haven’t sold more than a hundred dollars in the past

[00:01:24] two royalty periods, something like that. So if you’ve met those thresholds, so say you’re making $5 in the last two royalty periods and your book came out six years ago, you have the right as the author to ask your publisher to revert the rights of that book to you. And this was something that I did the very last day of 2019.

[00:01:49] I asked my publisher to revert the rights for the first book in my debut young adult paranormal series. And it took about four months, but when I heard back, they decided as they were not publishing young adult books anymore to revert the entire series to me, which was pretty cool. And very exciting and extremely overwhelming.

[00:02:11] So at this point, which I probably should have done before requesting reversion or during that four months of waiting, I scoured the internet for what other authors did when they got their rights back. And I did find articles about how to ask for rights reversion and issues that authors may have had in the process.

[00:02:32] But there weren’t a lot of instances of authors talking about like what they did afterwards, did they republish the book? Did they do nothing with the book? I had no idea. So I did a little more personal research, and I went through my network of authors to see if anyone had reverted their rights before. And I found several and I asked what they did.

[00:02:55] All of their experiences were incredibly different, and it really gave me information on what I could do, but it really didn’t help me get to the point of figuring out what I wanted to do with these books. So, first of all, I had to think about what I wanted for my backlist and my author career in terms of putting out these books, because I still love these books and I want them to work for me.

[00:03:19] So that’s where I started. I absolutely wanted to republish these books, 99.9% of reverted books you cannot get published from another publisher. So I know there’s special unicorns out there. So I will just mention that it’s not a hundred percent, but most of the time once your books are reverted. You either do nothing with them, or you have to republish them yourself if you want them to continue working for you.

[00:03:42] But I had also published thirteen books with Harlequin and Harper Collins, and I really had such a skewed view of the publishing process. I only had to deal with the product. So I would write the book, edit at the book do copy edits and send it off and that was it. They handled all of the process of uploading to vendors and contacting for promotions and things like that.

[00:04:09] So then I had to do a ton of research on how to self-publish in general and how to figure out how I wanted these books to be put out there again. Now I did have the unique experience where I had already had these books out before. So I understood marketing trends and things like that. So I understood publishing as like a whole, but not necessarily all of the minute details. Throughout this process

[00:04:33] I was very overwhelmed at certain times, because there was no guide other than asking these people I had in my network about their process. I one, I didn’t feel comfortable asking them to give me a step-by-step process because a lot of these authors had done this year’s prior and were moving on with their books and because all of their processes were different

[00:04:55] I would have to really home in on the details from a lot of different authors. So I basically took information as I went, I spoke with my indie published friends who are so, so amazing and they were happy to give me a lot of information, but I really had to do a lot of research myself and how I wanted these books to be out there again, because, you know, what, when you have your books reverted back to you and you are a self-published author, you are the boss.

[00:05:24] And to be honest, that control is quite addictive. And while I was in this process, an idea really struck me one day when I was talking to one of my author friends, and I had the idea to create the thing that I would have wanted when I was early on in this process. So I wanted a step-by-step guide or at least to feel like I was heard and someone who was in my shoes before to go through this process.

[00:05:53] So I created that guide for any author from here on out who goes forward, not understanding what rights reversion is and getting that confidence to get your book back. And then the tips and tricks that I learned in this process to republish that book. Because if you have the opportunity to get your books back, to make more profit and have complete control of your book, why wouldn’t you?

[00:06:18] And also I got to the point too, of why wouldn’t you talk about it? So this is a big mindset shift for me , and I know a lot of authors in the traditional publishing space where we sort of tend to tread around these difficult topics when it comes to bad mouthing publishers. I have no qualms with publishers. They created a career for me, which I so, so appreciate.

[00:06:44] But there are a lot of things that we don’t talk about. And one of these things is actually talking about failure, because if you are able to get your rights reverted back to you, at some point, your book is quote unquote a failure because it’s not making the money you want it to whether that’s because it doesn’t.

[00:07:02] have a lot of promotion behind it, or it’s been out for 20 years and you’re ready to move on to something else. And the publishing space, whether it’s traditional or indie is really shifting at quite a pace and publishers can’t keep up with that. Admittedly, anyone who is not the 1% of authors who get all of the promotions, they’re going to fall behind.

[00:07:23] So as I said, this book is a culmination of the process from me to asking for re version to becoming a successfully reverted author. And I also go in depth in the book for considerations for your book after reversion. And it really starts from understanding what rights reversion is to asking for your rights back to getting your rights back and also considerations of what to do after you get your book back to republishing your book.

[00:07:51] And along with those tips, I’m so, so excited to have such amazing authors giving their own success stories about how they were reverted and the process that they went through. I am eternally grateful to them, and I’m so excited to share them with you. And as I mentioned, I want to give you a little bit of a sneak peek for the cover.

[00:08:10] It’s a part of the cover that I absolutely adore. And the moment I saw it, I just was so happy with the cover designer that I chose and so happy with how the book is going to hopefully stand out on the shelves so here you go. I hope that gave you a little bit of excitement for when it comes to this book. I am so excited to share

[00:08:33] everything about this book very, very soon, I am going to do the official cover reveal and hopefully unboxing of my proof copies on July 19th. So that’s in two weeks. If you are interested in getting all of my sneak, peeks to my videos, my publishing process, a little more access to me, you can join my Patreon page and/ or my newsletter, and I would love to see you there.

[00:08:59] So if you enjoyed this video, do give it a big thumbs up because it really helps me out. Next week I have another Writer’s Hive video coming straight to your YouTube. So be sure to hit that subscribe button and the little notification bell so you know, immediately when that goes live. And also when my cover reveal goes live on July 19th and that’s it for now.

[00:09:19] So I’ll see you soon.