We’ve asked author Myretta Robens to document precisely what goes into getting rights back and then republishing a book. She chose to publish through Pronoun, but the journey to eventual upload applies to authors no matter where they choose to self-publish.
In the olden days, when manuscripts were submitted to publishing companies in a priority mail box, I sold my first novel to Kensington Publishing. This blog is about my second book, sold to Kensington at the same time as the first. This all happened in 2005, the year in which Kensington discontinued the line that published my books. Just Say Yes is, possibly, the last book published for Zebra’s Traditional Regency line. Here’s what the cover looked like in those halcyon days.
For reasons known only to the publisher, it was ten years before I was eligible to get my rights back. Yes, Ten. Make sure you read your contract before signing. So, in 2015, I wrote to Kensington Publishing (a couple of times).
And eventually they wrote back. Make sure you have a letter like this before you go any farther. Why waste your effort?
See? I got the rights back to both books. I was ready to embark upon self-publishing.
Fasten your seatbelts.
Although I thought this book was really good when I sent it to Kensington way back in pre-digital days, and although it was a finalist for the coveted RWA RITA award, I figured it probably needed to be revised.
And I was right.
I know this doesn’t look like much but, when you have 219 pages and you have two or three of these on each page, it adds up. Don’t skip this step. Someone will notice. In my case, this was doubly important since the language of a Traditional Regency (which this was) was significantly more formal than what today’s reader is used to and probably looking for.
So, you do your revisions. I did mine with pen as you can see above. If you do it this way, you have to sit down and put them into your manuscript. It helps if you have a clean manuscript to work with. I kept the original that I sent to the publisher in 2004. I’m glad I did.
Now what? You could go ahead and call it good and publish it as is. I know people who do this. I would not recommend it. Yes, it’s been edited and copy-edited by your publisher. This, I remind you, was ten years ago. Have it copy-edited again. Find yourself a copy-editor you trust and pay her to make sure your book is clean, consistent, and coherent.
I ran into a little problem with this step. The copy-editor I usually use was not available within my desired time frame. I turned to a friend, a multi-published former English teacher with an eagle eye, and she agreed to help.
She was great. Possibly too great. She did a bang-up job of copy-editing. Among other things, she made the frightening discovery that I start way too many of my sentences with conjunctions. This is the type of thing I would never notice and, apparently, my Kensington copy-editor didn’t notice either. Or didn’t care (see what I mean about conjunctions?)
As a writer, however, she tended to go a little beyond straight copy-editing and slid into developmental editing. I didn’t object. Some of her observations were spot on and very helpful. I do warn you, however, that, if you are working with someone who is doing this, be protective of your voice. I thanked my friend and told her that I would be ignoring quite a few of her recommendations. Always pick someone who is okay with this.
Then, of course, you must make the changes that your editor has recommended (and that you’ve decided not to ignore) to the manuscript. Once done, you’re pretty much ready to get started with the actual publishing part of this process.
I don’t want you to think that you’re done formatting the manuscript yet. Stay tuned.
Do you have yourself a Pronoun account? It’s pretty easy to sign up for one.
Once you’ve signed up, the Pronoun interface will walk you through the steps to set up an account and upload your manuscript. Pay careful attention to each step. What you enter here will affect how your final product looks when it hits the online sellers.
Here’s what you have to gather before you start:
- Title of your book
- The author name under which you’re publishing
- Any other contributors
- Your book cover. You don’t own the cover on a book previously published by a traditional publisher. You can have one designed and ready to upload or Pronoun will take you to a site (Canva) where you can design your own. I prefer to have someone who knows what they’re doing take care of cover design for me.
- Your manuscript ready for upload
- Categories and key words that will be used at the seller sites (Amazon, B&N, etc.)
- Book description. This is important. It is what will appear at the top of your book page on Amazon and the other vendors. Make sure it capture the readers’ attention and concisely describes your book. Make it short. Make it interest-grabbing.
- Do you have an ISBN number? If you don’t have one of your own, no problem, Pronoun will give you one.
- What do you want to charge for your book?
- When do you want to release it?
Pronoun will help you through every one of these steps. They have some great resources.
…including this one.
Their knowledge base covers everything clearly. (Just so you know, this sentence originally started with “And”)
Your last step (or perhaps I should say steps) before you decide to go live is to create and download proofs.
You can select from two versions. I downloaded the Kindle version—seven times—and sent it to my Kindle so I could see how it would look to a reader. Problems need to be addressed on your .docx document and then uploaded again to Pronoun. Eventually, you’ll get it close to right. If you get it perfect, let me know. I’m intrigued.
Eventually, you can send it off to the digital vendors and you’ll see something like this.
Pronoun will distribute your book to Amazon, iBooks, Google, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo and will give you a page to allow ordering from any of these sites. Moreover (and very importantly) it will give you a page to track your sales which, I assure you, you’ll be doing obsessively.
Good luck and have fun.