Howey negotiated a fixed-term rights reversion contract with Simon & Schuster
Hugh Howey · #63 Hugh Howey: Winning at the Self-publishing Game · Aug 6, 2019 · at 1:25:12
Author Hugh Howey describes leveraging the self-publishing success of Wool to force traditional publishers into non-standard fixed-date rights reversion contracts.
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“One of the things we did, we set up like the book reverts on this date and we were able to say no to every other offer. And meanwhile, we're selling lots of copies and making lots of money and publishers are being left out. So eventually publishers are like, okay, we'll do this deal. And we get the book for five years, say, well, wool is still selling really, really well in, in print and by Simon and Schuster and bookstores. And next year I'm going to get the rights back. And it doesn't matter that the book is selling well. It doesn't matter that it's still in print. Like we have in the contract, the date that I get the rights back.”
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