Republishing Out of Print Books – It’s Not as Easy as You Think
When I began posting reviews of Dinah Dean’s long out of print Russian Series set during the early years of the nineteenth century, it was with the knowledge that Ms. Dean was deceased and that I had seen no signs of her books being digitally released. But then – a miracle! Cover & Page Publishers began reissuing them. Millie Page then offered to write a brief article for us describing the steps behind what it takes to rescue these OOP books. –Jayne
Why Great Books don’t get Reissued: A Guest Post for Dear Author
There are many wonderful books out of print. For fans of these books it can be frustrating and baffling that they’re not being republished. For instance, Dinah Dean’s books caused some confusion here at Dear Author as why they weren’t being reissued. The bleak reality is that publishing old books isn’t sufficiently lucrative for most publishers to think it worthwhile.
We think it is important to retain the history of the romance genre for the enjoyment and interest of readers now and in the future. However, there are a number of tricky hurdles before books get the continued availability they deserve.
The first question is whether there is a live author and a digital version of the manuscript. If both of those are the case (books written mid-nineties onwards), the book is probably already available as ebook. But it gets interesting where one or both of those things isn’t true, because the cost and inconvenience of reissuing a book with no digital version of the manuscript makes it both a specialist job, and almost more hassle than acquiring a new book. Moreover, there are several other things that make reissuing old books less attractive to a major publisher – the author cannot write new ‘frontlist’ books, cannot approve major edits, and can’t do all the extra marketing that is expected of authors these days. So even if an old book is as commercial and perfect as one written now, it is still less attractive. At which point, all the big publishers put their time into new, more commercially viable, books.
The most common reason that older books are now available is that the author’s family have already self-published. Authors often beget authors, and a son or daughter will often take on the publication of their parent’s books. If a book has been out of print for some years, we can generally assume the family are not interested in publishing it themselves. In that case these books (and their readers) rely on small companies like Cover & Page to keep the stories of these older books alive.
Let’s look first at the very basics of how a book goes from out of print to ebook. If at any stage the process fails, we’re (usually but not always) dumped into waiting 95 years after the book was published for the copyright (in the USA) to expire on anonymously published works.
The process ideally goes like this:
1 establish who the author is
2 establish who owns the copyright to the books, find contact details for them, and check they have sufficient documentary evidence to prove ownership
3 establish who should profit from the royalties of the books
4 agree on a contract with the copyright holders
5 acquire paper copies of the books
6 digitize the books, agree on any changes to the books to account for modern sensibilities, new cover, new blurb, proofread, and publish
That all sounds quite straightforward, yes?
Let’s have a look at how it can be impossible at each stage.
Question one – Who is the author?
Many authors write under pen names and many of these have never been revealed. This is the case for a large number of Harlequin and Mills and Boon authors. If the author’s legal name is unknown, there is nothing to be done but wait.
Question two – Who owns the copyright?
Essentially, copyright is either sold in its entirety by the author (rare, although more common in the past), or gifted when the author passes away.
Quite often the author has divided their books between multiple charities and family members. Negotiating with ten different parties is a non-starter, so those books remain unpublished.
Even if we can establish who now owns the copyright, it’s often a non-trivial issue to find that person. Not everyone has a large digital footprint, especially older people. And if a person’s name is ‘John Smith’, the search is much too wide to be feasible.
In addition, many people won’t even be aware they own these books, and don’t want the hassle. They might also be embarrassed by their relative having written romance. There is still a stigma.
Question three – Who benefits from the royalties?
Royalties are payment for use of copyright, so they ought to be kept together. If you have the copyright, you get the royalties. But this isn’t always the case. Well-meaning authors sometimes have allocated the royalties (but not the copyrights) of all or some books to particular parties. Romance writers on average are a generous bunch, and many gift their royalties to charities, who then struggle to utilize them fully.
This situation creates a non-trivial problem. Why would the copyright holder permit republication (with all the hassle for them) if they don’t stand to benefit financially from royalties? Particularly where there are multiple parties holding shares of the copyright and the right to royalties, this makes it impossible.
Questions 4 and 5 – Contracts and finding the print books.
Actually pretty straightforward, compared to the following and previous steps. The acquisition of copies of the books in question needs patience and perseverance. Many romances were treated almost like magazines – like they had no value at all, and were thrown away after reading, and printed on very cheap paper. And because of the perceived (lack of) value of romance books, they’re often not catalogued in the way that other genres are.
Question 6 – Publishing the book for a new audience.
Then comes all the usual things that are required for publication, including a manuscript. Converting a paper book into a digital book can be done in several different ways, but all are laborious to achieve the high-quality product both readers and the author’s legacy deserve. Like with a newly written book, multiple rounds of editing are required to catch every mistake, (including the ones printed in the original book, of which there will be more than one) with the added difficulty that the author cannot make any “calls” about style, and the digitisation process adds many errors.
There is an extra and serious consideration for older books. Edits are required to make a book that was written sometime in the past acceptable for readers now. This isn’t always straightforward. Particular words and characterisations that were common in the past are not acceptable now. Sometimes books fall at this late stage, if the negative stereotypes are so deeply embedded that it isn’t possible to remove or excuse them.
Once a digital copy has been created, it is then necessary to recreate all the other aspects of the book. The back cover copy and cover are copyrighted separately to the text itself, and usually cannot be used in the reissue.
The cover and book description are especially important. They need to inform readers of what they’re getting and manage their expectations, as older books are written in a different style. It’s a bit like if you order food at a restaurant and something similar but different arrives. If you ordered chicken and are given turkey you’ll be upset, even if it’s delicious turkey. But if the menu is clear that it’s turkey, you’ll be well pleased. This involves a delicate balancing act of giving the book a beautiful cover that appeals to modern audiences, but also showing that it is a bit different.
From a Readers’ Perspective
What should you do if you want to see a book reissued? Review it and talk about it in a public forum that’s easily searchable. Goodreads is an obvious choice. Then, if someone is looking at whether there is interest in a book, they can find evidence in a logical single place. That’s probably the single biggest thing, but not very likely to do much, sadly.
You can also put in a request with Cover and Page and we’ll see if we can find out anything.
Now it’s over to you. I’d love to hear your memories of books you read years ago. Everyone has old favourites that are difficult to find now.
One author who immediately comes to mind is Sheila Bishop.
Great article.. I will work on remembering old titles!
Thanks so much for writing this for us, Millie. It makes for fascinating reading.
I remember that when Loretta Chase was republishing her old traditional regencies as ebooks, she posted somewhere (probably her blog) that fixing the OCR (optical character recognition) errors after the books were scanned was more work than copyediting a new manuscript, and I can believe it. I hope the technology has improved since then.
There have also been some cases that confound me. For example, Eva Ibbotson’s books for adults, originally issued as historical romances, were reissued as YA novels by a major publisher in the early 2000s. The heroines are young, there’s no sex, and Ibbotson’s sensibility is charming and clearly influenced by fairy tales and children’s classics, so I can see where that would work, though many adult readers would miss out. But what I can’t understand is the treatment of Madensky Square.
Madensky Square is very clearly not a YA (the heroine is thirty six and the mistress of a married man, and it is more women’s fiction than romance, though set in Vienna just before World War I). Well and good, if the same publisher didn’t want to reissue with the others, that I understand. What baffles me is that Madensky Square *was* digitally reissued, but not in the US. It’s available if you live in the UK or in Canada, though. Do you have any insights to why that is the case?
At one point, also, The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, the first book in her Lymond Chronicles and a classic much beloved by romance readers (though it’s categorized as historical fiction), was not available in Amazon, though all the other books in the series were. I discovered that Barnes and Noble did have it, but since I really wanted it in kindle format, I called Amazon to complain. Not much later, they made it available. But there are books that weren’t reissued at all (in the US, at least, I didn’t check other countries) and then when they were made available, the series was republished out of order.
I think that happened with Patricia Veryan’s The Golden Chronicles. For a long time only some of them were available, but Love Alters Not, the first in the series, was reissued last. To this day if you look at it on Amazon, the paperback sells for $80 and is listed as the first in the series, while if you go to the ebook’s page, it’s listed as #6 (likely because it was reissued sixth).
Do you have any theories on these cases, Millie?
And another question: Does clicking the “I’d like to read this book on kindle” link on Amazon make a difference?
One that I’ve been clicking and clicking for is Sebastien Japrisot’s post-WWI mystery, A Very Long Engagement. This book was a #1 bestseller in France and was made into a movie with Audrey Tautou, and translated into English to much acclaim, and yet, there is no ebook version to be found.
Yeah, one of the worst scanning errors was “He grabbed the chair anus.” So close…
@Jayne:
Interesting, thank you.
I was already aware of Sheila Bishop. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it!
@Janine:
Hi Janine,
I’m so glad you found this article interesting!
To answer some of your questions:
OCR is better than it used to be, but is dependent on the font in the book and the quality of the scan (primarily). But I agree with Chase, copyediting after OCR is far more work that copyediting a new book.
Eva Ibbotson look like they are published by several different Macmilllan imprints. I’m hazy on the details here, but I’ve seen many instances of Macmillan books having a different publisher in the UK. Perhaps Macmillan have some agreement with a UK publisher and they distribute for them? In which case different publishers will make different choices about what is worth their while to publish. It could also be that the rights were sold differently by Ibbotson’s agent, or similar.
The Game of Kings and other weird occurrences you mention sound like simple human error. Most commercial publishers are dealing with high volumes of books, and assume the author (who is normally the most invested in the process) will catch any mistakes or problems. A specialist publisher is more likely to be invested (both emotionally and monetarily) in getting everything right. As well as this, despite what the recent PRHS&S case has tried to say, big 5 publishers are very much aware of what is costing them money and making them money, and if books aren’t bestselling, (for example because there is no author to do book tours or push for advertising spend) they might nudge back reissuing because other books are more profitable.
The paperback prices listed on Amazon are frequently not reflective of the actual second hand book market price, demand, or value of that book. I wouldn’t give that much weight.
The “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” link probably sends the publisher a notification – if there is one on file. If there’s an ebook available in another territory, or there’s a current paperback listed, it’s worth a go. For a second hand book, the notification won’t go anywhere, so you might as well shout into the void.
For the Sebastien Japrisot book, it doesn’t look like it has been out of print. The audio was done back in 1991, pre ebooks and the author’s death. The issue with the ebook could be because the translation has different rights allocations to the French edition and the translator’s rights are unclear (translation rights vary a lot, including by country). It could also just be that no one thinks it’s worth digitising given the paperback isn’t selling much, or the French agent hasn’t put much attention to it. This is a rare case where pressing the “I’d like to read this on Kindle” button might help.
Thank you Millie. That was fascinating.
As it happens, I’m currently re-reading Joanna by Roberta Gellis, having recently re-read Roselynde (I decided to read Alinor later rather than immediately after for reasons.) I have Roselynde in print and electronically as it was reissued back in the early 2000s by the now defunct Ellora’s Cave but Alinor was never reissued electronically. I can buy a very poor scan of Joanna and Gilliane (books 3 and 4 of the Roselynde Chronicles) but they’re nearly $7 and are full of scanning errors so I can’t bring myself to do it. I tried the Open Library but most of the series is not in the library at all and those that are are available to download for disabled readers only; otherwise it’s a 2 hour borrow on the PC.
So I have found myself reading a print book (very yellowed with age and in not-great condition as it was 2nd hand when I got it, having been first published in the late 1970s) for the first time in literally years. I much prefer electronic books. Roberta Gellis passed away in 2016 unfortunately so it seems unlikely that we will see Alinor (or any of her others which are out of print) republished electronically. I am sad.
@Kaetrin: I’d say the poor scans of Joanne and Gilliane are pirated. The give aways are: the cover is a scan of the original paperback (that would be *very* unlikely for a legal reissue) and there is no copyright information at the front of the book.
How people do this and get away with it, I don’t know, but there was a counterfeit copy of one of the Dinah Dean books up for a while. It’s frustrating, because as you see above, there’s a lot of effort that goes into doing this legitimately. And many readers won’t ever realise they are being conned and the author’s family aren’t being paid.
If you wanted to report those books to Amazon, that would be nice. No one except the scammers is benefitting from them.
I remember a few years ago that someone was putting up pirated copies of Mary Burchell books before legit editions of the Warrender Saga finally came out. The immediate giveaway was the crappy covers on them. Sunita and I reported them and Amazon did take them down.
@Kris Bock: I’m glad I didn’t read that with a mouthful of my morning coffee.
Millie,
Thanks for this. I’ve been devouring the Dinah Dean books in kindle. I have a few of her books in paperback that I’ve found in UBS or Abebooks. But some were just too expensive.
Another author I might suggest is Sylvia Thorpe. She writes regencies, georgians and English Civil War eras. Not all would work with modern sensibilities, however still lots to publish.
@AMG: Yes, Sylvia Thorpe! Thanks for reminding me. I should have thought of her. I have lots of her books as paperbacks I bought 40 years ago.
@AMG: Sylvia Thorpe is still alive (or was last I checked) and not interested in republishing. Sadly.
I didn’t put ‘doesn’t want to’ on the list, but it also happens. Sometimes people just… don’t want to republish their books. Maybe they’re now embarrassed? Or think it will be too much hassle?
I don’t know, and I don’t hassle old ladies to find out.
@Millie Page: Ahh, that’s too bad. But it’s her choice and I definitely agree about not hassling old ladies.
How about Marian Devon? She wrote some funny trad regencies. I know Anne Devon was one of her other pen names.
Thanks for your interesting article. I agree 100 percent about Sheila Bishop. She was a very wonderful (and rather grownup) romance writer; why aren’t her books available as ebooks? Also, in the same vein, Mary Ann Gibbs, who had some very fine Victorian romances. Though British authors published first in the UK, both came to my attention through the Signet romance paperback series put out back in the 1970s and 80s.
There are also two non-romances with famous movie adaptations that I’ve asked amazon over and over to issue as ebooks, to no avail: The Nun’s Story by Katherine Hulme (made into a fine film with Audrey Hepburn) and The List of Adrian Messenger by Philip MacDonald (made into a famous and delightful film directed by John Huston, with George C Scott, Kirk Douglas, Dana Winter, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, and others). Some other books by Philip MacDonald are available on kindle but not this, his most famous one.
I’d also very much like to see The Hand of Mary Constable by Paul Gallico as a kindle/ebook. Other books by the eclectic Gallico are available, but this one–a mystery that explores the paranormal–is not.
@Kris Bock: An even more unfortunate one IMO was the one in the ebook of Susan Andersen’s Baby, I’m Yours. “Shifted” was replaced with “shitted” in “He stiffened and she felt his muscles loosen as she shitted on the ground.” Huffington Post and The Guardian reported on it at the time.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/susan-andersens-baby-im-yours-typo_n_958467
@Millie Page: Thanks for explaining. I could be misremembering, but I think with the Patricia Veryan books the publisher was actually issuing them out of order and hadn’t stopped–they said the others would come later. It was really weird because it wasn’t even just a bunch of later ones and then all the earlier ones, but more like book two and book four are available, but not books one, three, five and six (these are not exact numbers, but it was in that kind of weird pattern).
I have clicked on that Japrisot button at least three or four times over the years. I don’t know if it will make any difference at all. I suppose I could try to track down his French publisher and see if they would forward something to his heir(s). He passed away in 2003. Weirdly a couple of his mysteries from the 1960s *are* available as ebooks on Amazon. A Very Long Engagement was first published in 1991.
@Kaetrin: This is the kind of thing that drives readers to piracy (not that I’m advocating that!). Also it is really pretty shocking in the case of Gellis that there isn’t an ebook; she was massively popular in her day.
@EP:
I looked into Mary Ann Gibbs. Her books are unlikley to be republished any time soon (legally). She died in 1985 and almost 40 years later I’m pretty sure her copyrights have been split between too many people to make republication feasible. On the positive side, her later books you only have to wait about 30 years before they’re in the public domain 70 years after her death, so… Yay?
Kathryn Hulme – I don’t know. My expertise is in UK based authors as that’s where I’m from.
Philip MacDonald – if his other works are reissued, then it is a matter of contacting the publisher of those books, and asking. Same goes for Paul Gallico.
@Jayne: I’ll put Marian Devon on my list to see what I can find out.
@Millie Page:
Yes to Marian Devon. She is also a fave of mine. My Sylvia Thorpe dream is dying hard. Too bad, she wrote some amazing stories. Thanks!
With Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris becoming a movie, perhaps that will renew interest in Paul Gallico’s novels.
Thanks for writing this, Millie. It’s very interesting to get a behind the scenes explanation.
@Janine – With the out of order books, I wonder if it was a case of which ones they got rights to or found a copy of first. Or even the order in which somebody randomly grabbed them off the To Be Scanned stack!
How about Doris Sutcliffe Adams? “Grace Ingram was the pseudonym of Doris Sutcliffe Adams (1920-2015). She wrote six novels: Desert Leopard, Price of Blood, Power of Darkness, and No Man’s Son under her own name, and Red Adam’s Lady and Gilded Spurs under the name Grace Ingram.”
Four years ago, English author Elizabeth Chadwick managed to get “Red Adam’s Lady (Rediscovered Classics Book 32)” republished digitally but none of Adams’s other books have been.
Interesting!
Constance Heaven is another whose books I wish were available in e-format.
Regarding difficulties with editing, can anyone explain why the kindle looks okay when you preview but is full of OCR errors after you buy/download? I try to pay attention to reviews that warn about these errors but it can be difficult to tell if the errors have been corrected since corrected versions are sometimes uploaded.
@Millie Page: The Ibbotson situation is particularly frustrating because I really want the ebook, it exists legally, but I can’t purchase it simply because I live in the U.S. and not in Canada or the UK.
@Millie Page: Why are Mary Ann Gibbs’ later books the ones coming into the public domain first and not the earlier ones? Or did you mean the earlier ones?
Thanks for writing this, Millie! I’ve been proofreading for an author who’s had rights revert, and the whole OCR thing definitely introduces errors.
Appreciate getting this behind-the-scenes look at how this process works for print-only titles!
@Jayne:
I’ll have a look into Doris Sutcliffe Adams and let you know if I get anywhere.
@RND:
I’ll have a look for Constance Heaven too. You never know!
I’d bet the reason for fewer errors in the sample is simple human error/laziness. Mostly books are checked from beginning to end, and as you get further on, most people get tired and begin to miss things.
@flchen1:
Glad you liked it! And yes, OCR. Brilliant. Amazing. But not perfect by a long shot.
@Janine:
Very frustrating! It is partially surmountable. If you set up a UK account with a reship address, you can get the ebook, and depending on the store, you may be able to download the file and get it onto your usual ereader, or log into a separate account to access it.
I make no statements about the legality of that. But the morality of it seems okay to me.
For Mary Ann Gibbs: In 1978 the US moved to the 70 years after death model of copyright (which is now the standard almost everywhere). Before that copyright was 95 years after first publication (in rough terms – it’s more complicated than that). So given Gibbs died in 1985, anything she published after 1978 will come into the public domain in 2055. But a book published in 1977 won’t be in the public domain until 2072.
@RND: Yes to Constance Heaven!
@Millie Page: I have thought of asking a friend if I could use her address for that purpose. I assume it would work if I used a store she doesn’t shop at and my own credit card. But it seems bold and intrusive to ask it of someone, and I don’t want to put her on the spot. The rest of it I have no problem with–like you, I feel it’s moral. If anyone here feels like sharing their Canada or UK address with me so I can purchase a legal copy of the book, my email is [email protected]. I promise to review Madensky Square if I can get my hands on a digital copy.
@Millie Page: And wow! Re Mary Ann Gibbs. Copyrights should be shorter IMO (speaking as one who wrote and published a short story under one). Fifty years from publication, or the death of the author, whichever comes later, seems about right to me. Thanks for explaining.