Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms With Katlyn Duncan

How can you take back your rights when publishing conditions change? How can you make sure you sign contracts that make it easier for rights reversion in the future? Katlyn Duncan talks about these things and more.

In the intro, the splits in indie publishing [Kris Writes]; Burnout and Writer’s Block [6 Figure Authors]; Publisher Rocket now has audio data; Blood, Sweat, and Flame, my glassblowing short story; Atomic Habits and the threat of boredom.

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This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

Katlyn Duncan is the author of women’s fiction, YA, thrillers, and nonfiction under several pen names as well as a ghostwriter of over 40 novels. Today, we’re talking about Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Own Terms.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

  • What is rights reversion and why is it so important to consider — even before you sign a contract (or upload a book as an indie)?
  • Clauses to watch out for in publishing contracts — and how to make sure you can get your rights back
  • How to approach a publisher for rights reversion
  • What you actually get back when rights are reverted (i.e. it’s not your cover or layout)
  • What to do once your rights are reverted — and why you should stop and think about the long term before re-publishing
  • What if you’re embarrassed or ashamed that it didn’t work out with a publisher?

You can find Katlyn Duncan at KatlynDuncan.com and on Twitter @katlyn_duncan

Transcript of Interview with Katlyn Duncan

Joanna: Katlyn Duncan is the author of women’s fiction, YA, thrillers, and nonfiction under several pen names as well as a ghostwriter of over 40 novels. Today, we’re talking about Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Own Terms. Welcome, Katlyn.

Katlyn: Thank you so much for having me, Joanna.

Joanna: I’m excited to talk about this topic. It is a fantastic book, so much in it.

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Katlyn: Absolutely. So I am one of those authors who had that storyteller bug from day one. As a child, I tended to focus a lot more on movies and television. I was very much into acting and screenwriting. And as much as my family has always supported my hobbies, I was encouraged to get a ‘real job.’

I was really good at math and science. So I went to school for forensic science. I didn’t really do a lot of reading or writing when I hit my college years. After I graduated, there was that big YA boom with Twilight and all these fantasy books and I started following these authors on Twitter. And I realized that a lot of them had full-time jobs.

See, I was always of the mindset that writing had to be a full-time job, so I never thought I could really do it for myself while I had a job. So after that I had the bug hit me again and I was so excited and this time I went to novels because I was really inspired by all of these authors who were working and also writing.

YA wasn’t a thing when I was a child at that age. I started writing my own YA books and I wrote in the mornings and the evenings, and I participated in NaNoWriMo for many years, and then in 2012, I submitted my first book to Karina UK.

It was a new digital-first imprint with Harlequin and they were taking unagented submission. So I am an author who’s never had an agent. I submitted and I actually got a deal for a trilogy and then the rest is history at that point.

Joanna: Well, it’s interesting too that you said you had a day job. What was your day job?

Katlyn: I actually worked in a fertility laboratory for many years.

Joanna: Oh, wow. And you have a background in forensic science. Have you used that science background in your writing at all?

Katlyn: I think I use more of the mindset of fertility, but as I’m going into thrillers and everything, I find that absolute love for solving cases and solving mysteries is definitely starting to come back. So I definitely use that in my writing.

Joanna: And then also being a ghostwriter with so many novels, how did you get into that as well?

Katlyn: When I had my child, I was home for a bit. I was very lucky to be able to stay home. And after about three months, I really wanted to start writing again. I was in between contracts at that moment and a friend of mine was talking about how she was a ghostwriter and I was like, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ And I got into it.

Then I mostly worked on upwork.com. It’s a freelance website. I started off with very poor-paying jobs, but they were very generous with five-star reviews. And so I was able to build myself up to that point and then I had for about a couple of years, I had two consistent clients and then I also did work with a packaging company as well.

In 2019, I really wanted to just write my own books. I was heading back into working full-time outside of writing. So that’s where I ended up and I had a lot of fun with it and I learned so much. But definitely, right now, I’ve just been leaning on writing my own books.

Joanna: It’s always interesting to hear from ghostwriters as well. I think so many people don’t understand how big a part of the industry it actually is. And like you mentioned, book packaging companies.

I don’t have any issue with any of these business models and of course, the book packagers come up with an idea, then they find someone to write it. I know some people who write stuff in that kind of model and it’s interesting. It’s work for hire, like you said, you were at home and you wanted some work and so that worked for you.

But to the book, Take Back Your Book, so why write this book?

In your publishing experience, why did you want to write Take Back Your Book?

Katlyn: Rights reversion came out of a need to figure it out for myself. When I was about to have my rights reverted or I was talking to a couple of friends about it when my books had been out for a little while, I did some research on what authors do after reversion and I really couldn’t find any information outside of blog posts, but they were years past and it was mostly about the process of rights reversion. So I found my way through the process.

I leaned a lot on self-publishing models because obviously once your book is reverted, usually I would say 99% of the time, you cannot get another publishing deal with that book.

So I definitely leaned a lot on the self-publishing model with that and then it’s one of those lightning bolt moments with this book specifically that I was like, ‘Why don’t I just write a book for other people?’

Because I had spoken to a lot of authors who were going through the process or had been through the process and no one was really talking about it. And I was like, ‘Well, why don’t I just write something out? I’ve done YouTube for a couple of years, so I’m used to giving that sort of non-fiction publishing advice.’

And so I just figured I would write about my journey and in the hopes that maybe it would help someone else if they were in a situation where they’re like, ‘Okay. I can get my book rights reverted. What do I do now?’

Joanna: Fantastic. So before we get into the detail, we should just say this is not legal advice. We are not attorneys, or lawyers, or agents, or anyone with any qualifications in this area. So this is just our opinion and experience through learning this area. I just wanted to make that very clear upfront. So let’s get into it.

You’ve mentioned rights reversion, but we should probably define it. What is rights reversion and/or when rights are reverted?

Katlyn: This is just my experience as an author. So, again, I would always advise someone to talk to a lawyer or an agent about this stuff.

Rights reversion is a clause in a literary contract that allows authors to work with their publisher to regain some or all of their book rights after certain conditions are met.

So this can vary widely when it comes to different contracts.

For instance, the clause may read seven years after publication, if this work is selling less than 250 units over the last three royalty periods, the author has the opportunity to ask for those book rights back.

Joanna: I just want to make it clear also, for many indie authors, we also sign contracts when we agree to terms and conditions. So rights reversion also applies if you are an independent author.

For example, ACX has their seven years exclusivity contract which many authors have signed. I signed because they were the only option seven years ago and now I’m going through getting those rights back from ACX Exclusive in order to go wide.

And even on a smaller scale, the Kindle Unlimited 90-day period, that is essentially a contract of exclusivity for 90 days and if you don’t uncheck the checkbox, you stay in there. So I think there are lots of different ways that rights can be reverted now.

It can be automatic like the KU checkbox, but generally, you actually have to ask for reversion, don’t you?

Katlyn: Yes. And that can be as simple as a letter or an email.

My experience is that it was all digital. It was all over email because my publisher’s in the UK and I just stated the terms of the contract and I asked for the book rights back and they gave me, so far, my debut trilogy back.

Joanna: Right. And obviously, you’ve talked to a lot of people about this. We both know authors who’ve done this. Is it always that simple or are there often problems?

Katlyn: I have not experienced any problems. One of the authors that I did interview for the book did experience a bit of a problem. And I have heard horror stories of authors having to hire lawyers to deal with this and publishers not getting back to them.

I would say the majority of the time it’s pretty simple, but there are those instances and that’s always why I advise authors to really, really consider all the options when they are signing contracts.

Joanna: Yes. And I think that’s important. It’s best to sort it out upfront before you sign a contract because otherwise it can be a lot more difficult later in the process and you might have signed away things.

You mentioned there before a clause that might be in a contract.

Are there any other clauses to look out for or to add if they’re not there?

Katlyn: I’ve had four contracts total with this publisher and the first two contracts, I took on my own. I was very naive in that sense where I just figured, ‘Oh, this is a boilerplate contract. Here. Let me sign it.’

After that, I did hire lawyers for each of the other ones and really the clause that they focused on a lot was the option clause. That basically gives your publisher that you’re working with the first look at your next project. So this is where a publisher can, like in the worst-case scenario, not allow you to publish outside of their imprint ever again, but that’s usually not the norm.

When it comes to option causes, I always talk to other authors who ask me questions about, so try to make them as narrow as possible in terms of genre, timeline, and submission.

So when it comes to genre, if you’re writing, say adult thrillers, you may want to narrow that language a little bit to say, ‘You have the option to read my next adult thriller.’

If you want to go off and write women’s fiction or middle-grade books or anything like that, you’re not beholden to the publisher for that.

In terms of the timeline, sometimes there is not a timeline specified and sometimes there is. I always advise to try to have a narrow window of time. So say you don’t want them to consider the book for two years because then you can’t do anything with that book for two years until they say yes or no. I would recommend the smaller the window, the better.

And then when it comes to submission, that’s more of talking about what to submit. Some publishers may request a full manuscript submitted versus a proposal and sample chapters. I would always try to get the second option of just the proposal and the sample chapters if you can because personally, I never really liked the idea of drafting an entire novel without the promise of getting it sold.

So if you can’t get that removed… I know it’s very difficult to get that clause removed just based on experience I’ve had in speaking with other authors. I would just try to narrow it as much as you can in those terms.

Joanna: Yes. And so that’s the option clause, but I think even just the basic clauses around what they are going to publish.

In terms of the format, we’re not signing “all formats existing now and to be invented,” which is a clause. And also by territory. So it will be much easier to get things back if you don’t sign bad contracts to begin with.

You mentioned 250 units sold. It’s much easier to sell 250 units across the whole world versus say the USA or the UK or in or Australia, for example. So specifying the country where they’re publishing can really help because then you can prove things more easily.

And then also the time limits for either the whole contract or if they don’t exercise the rights. For example, we have a lot of authors who’ve signed away audiobook rights and then the publisher hasn’t made the audiobook. So if you have something in there that says the publisher has the audiobook rights for two years and if they don’t make the audiobook, the rights revert, for example. Those things that are controlling the scope of what they’ve licensed.

Katlyn: Exactly. And in terms of rights reversion too, I have only really focused on asking for all of the book rights back at once, but I’ve heard success stories of agents and authors asking for, like you said, audiobooks after two years and they were granted because say the ebook and the paperback we’re selling really well but the author wanted to go out and sell rights for their audiobook. I’ve seen that happen as well.

Joanna: Absolutely. So, yes, be aware of what you’re signing upfront. And then so an author has signed a contract like you, they’ve licensed the books, they want to get out of it. You mentioned sending an email and then maybe getting a lawyer or attorney letter if necessary.

Are there any other steps that people need to do in order to progress their rights reversion?

Katlyn: You’re sort of at their mercy at that point once you send that letter out, just getting it to the publisher and trying to exercise that time limit, that’s usually set within the reversion clause. So say they have 90 days to consider your request, make sure you follow up in 90 days.

You can do that probably solo for a little bit, but when it comes to escalating it a little bit if they’re not getting back to you or unwilling, definitely look into a lawyer. And as always, if you have an agent, that would be the first person to go to.

Joanna: Yes. Although, of course, we have to remember that a lot of agents get their money from working with publishers. So agents do have certain vested interests in things that an author might have a different view on. So it’s always important to decide on your own career choices.

I think you’re exactly right about following up in terms of, if no one responds, you set a reminder on your calendar or whatever to just keep following up; be the squeaky wheel.

Katlyn: Exactly. You’re in every right to be asking for this. So if you were a year in the contract and it states seven years, I wouldn’t follow up about rights reversion. But if it’s been 7, 8, 9 years and you want your book rights back and they’re not selling it anymore, you really have to step forward and try to get these rights back for yourself so that this book doesn’t have to die on the shelves, you can take control over it.

Joanna: How does an author know that they actually have their rights back and what does that reversion include?

Katlyn: That letter or email has really been that touchpoint when it comes to determining if you have the rights back. Be sure, if you get one, save it.

I know there’s instances of some authors who have tried to republish on Amazon and Amazon may say, ‘You don’t own the rights to this.’ They need proof. So make sure you always have that proof available to you for that. I would say just having that evidence is really all you need as far as my knowledge.

Joanna: Yes. That’s a really good point because an author might have an email from a publisher that says, ‘Your rights are reverted for this book,’ and then they go onto Amazon, or whatever, or Kobo, or Apple, and there’s the book because the rights department is completely separate to the publishing department.

So then, of course, you can’t republish that book until it’s been taken down. So it’s not just the email necessarily. You might also have to keep following up and actually get it removed, for example. That might also happen. It takes time for these things to disappear off the various stores, doesn’t it?

Katlyn: It does. And actually, I did run into that. One of my books was still available Apple Books months after and that is one of the mistakes that I made when it came to going through this process, was that I didn’t check all of the links because once it was down from Amazon, I checked like one or two places and it was down.

So I definitely would recommend going to…it may be tedious, but all of the places that your book was sold before and making sure it’s down because they’re still technically making money off your book if they’re still up under their publishing house.

Joanna: Absolutely. So going back to when you get your rights back, I get a lot of emails from people who don’t necessarily understand what it actually means. What do authors have the rights to?

Katlyn: Once the rights are reverted, you have the right to take that work and publish it on your own. You basically can do anything you want with it.

You can publish it for sale, you can put it on your website. You can do anything like that once the rights are reverted back to you.

Joanna: Right. But it doesn’t include the cover, it doesn’t include the format, that type of thing.

Katlyn: No. In most, at least the ones that I’ve signed and I’ve spoken to some authors, the contracts, they do have a sub-clause for reversion that is production files. So those are basically the final files before the book goes up for sale. The publisher has those.

In my experience, I’ve only seen my book through copy edits. I have not seen it after proof and I have not seen it with formatting. They usually give you the option to purchase those production files and so you can ask afterwards how much that would be and determine whether or not that’s in your budget.

I personally did not purchase mine back. The price for them was just a bit too high and I wanted to save a lot of my money for editing. So I basically had to go back to the last version of the book that I had and re-edit it in a sense. And since it had been over eight years since I had published it, I did want to go in there and edit it as well.

When it comes to covers, some authors actually have had their covers given to them whether or not they were just given or they had to pay for it similar to production files. If you absolutely love your cover, you can ask your publisher for that. But I didn’t get any of my covers back. I didn’t want them.

It had been so many years since publishing and market trends change and everything. So I would recommend probably starting from scratch with that if you’re not so super excited about your cover and it’s not too much to probably purchase back from the publisher.

Joanna: I agree with you. I think most people want to do a re-edit and we should call that maybe a light touch. Some people get obsessed with rewriting, but I think we’re at least going back through, even to things like updating the author bio and the bits where you list your other books and back matter and all of that type of thing. Definitely a read-through, plus, let’s face it, the culture has changed.

I’ve been reading a few short stories recently that were published 15 years ago and the culture has very much changed. And some of these stories, I’m like, ‘You would not put that out now.’ Or you would change things. I think it’s a really good idea.

And on the cover, as you mentioned, that a publisher might give an author the cover, but where is the copyright for the artwork, for example. And that to me is very worrying.

What if you republish that book and it does super, super well, and then you get an offer from a merchandising company or something like that? You wouldn’t have the right contracts in place to actually be able to use that cover.

So I would agree with you, I think re-editing, reformatting, getting new cover design. And also, it’s a new edition, right? So you want to put a new cover on it.

Katlyn: Right.

Joanna: What happens next? So let’s say we’ve edited, we’ve got another cover, we’ve reformatted. What do we need to do next? What else do we need to look out for?

Katlyn: If you have everything ready to go, the process that I went through is I wanted to determine upfront whether or not I wanted to go wide or exclusive with Amazon. I had to look at my plans long-term, like through more of a long-term lens.

With traditional publishing, it’s very, very front-list focused. What’s the next thing coming out?

But now, having my books back, it’s opened up so many doors for me, so I can do whatever I want with the rest of my books, forever.

So I definitely would recommend thinking about each book individually and seeing how you want to market it, how you want to publish it.

On top of that too, just another tip that I thought of with republishing is that with a lot of promotions they look at reviews, the amount of reviews you have, and one thing you can do with republishing your book, is make sure you save your ASIN number, that’s the Amazon book number and…or the ASIN number’s included.

You can actually ask Amazon once your book is republished again, to add those reviews back from the original edition, which I found very interesting. So when I republished my first reverted book, I had a lot of nice reviews already there from previously.

Joanna: That’s good. Did you just go through to KDP help or something?

Katlyn: I went through Author Central and they were able to link the reviews from the old edition to the new one. I would caution that if this was a book that you’re really not proud of and then you did a lot of editing, do you want those reviews, if they were like mostly negative or mostly lukewarm?

That’s something that authors can take into consideration, but definitely try to save that number from when your publisher published the book so that you’re able to link them once you republish.

Joanna: And because obviously, emails go out automatically on various services when an author publishes a new book, but this isn’t a new book and your readers might have already read it.

Do you put a notice in the description that this is not a new book? What do you do to let people know it’s a republication?

Katlyn: I put it right in my description. I said that this was a book originally published in 2013 of the same name. I would say that if you changed your title, that you probably would want to of put some sort of note either in the description or in the beginning of the book just so that maybe people don’t think you’re trying to trick them into buying the book again if it hasn’t changed.

I think if it’s changed significantly, that’s really up to you, whether or not you want to give that sort of warning, especially too, if you end up using a pen name and you just want to put the book out again under that pen name.

Joanna: That’s a good point, actually. So you mean you’ve published it with a publisher with one name and now you’re going to republish it under another name?

Katlyn: Yes.

Joanna: Right. Okay. That’s interesting.

Katlyn: Yeah. I did that with mine. I was one of those authors who published so many different genres under my name. And so as I came to this, getting my young adult books back, I wanted to start fresh and separate them.

It’s Katlyn Duncan versus Katie Duncan, but I didn’t want to trick anyone or make them feel like I tricked them. So I did put a little one-liner in the description. So hopefully no one feels like I was trying to do that.

Joanna: To be honest, a lot of people might want to do that if they’re coming back into their career. I know so many authors all who’ve done it the other way, who’ve been published under pen names and now want to put it under their real name as such.

How’s it working for you having multiple brands? Because I know a lot of people question whether it’s worth the hassle like different websites or different email.

Do you have any issues with managing two brands?

Katlyn: It’s just two for now. This was something that I really considered for a while. I pulled out the pros and cons list, but also too, it’s really bothered me over the years that I didn’t have separate adult and young adult personas.

So you can go all in, you can do everything separate if you have the time. That’s probably ‘the best way to do it.’ But everything is on my one website. So it all just tracks back to that.

I do have a separate Instagram that I started more recently for the Katie Duncan versus Katlyn Duncan. I wanted to pull that audience on their own because I do have a YouTube channel under my name and the nonfiction book and my adult books, I wanted to have them under Katlyn Duncan and then Katie Duncan for all my YA stuff moving forward.

Joanna: It’s interesting because so much of this rights reversion stuff, you actually have to think about what you want the future to look like this time.

It’s not just a case of, ‘Rights are back, upload file.’

Katlyn: Right. And I’m sure there are people that do that if they’re very happy with everything, but I took it as an opportunity to start over, in a sense, and just doing the things that I wanted to do based on my years of knowledge.

When I started off, I didn’t know much about the publishing industry. And it looked so different too in 2012. So yeah, I took it as an opportunity. I would recommend if you do have this opportunity, just think about some things that you would do differently or things that you weren’t happy about and just move forward from there.

Joanna: Yes. And I’d also encourage people, if you have a lot of books, yes, it might take a lot of effort to get these rights back, but the money you could potentially make with more books.

If it’s only one or two, then great, but I know people who’ve gone back and got 20 or 30 books and then putting those out, yes, again, it might it be some work to get those published, but then you control them, you can do box sets, which most traditional publishers don’t do and there’s just so many things you can do, right?

Katlyn: Yes. So many things. And it’s just amazing now with self-publishing. It’s as much as traditional publishers can do, we can do it as well.

Joanna: Are you all in as an indie now?

Katlyn: I’m all in. Just with writing this book and reflecting on my career, I’m in it for me and I just want to take part in this awesome community. The authors that I got to know are so great in terms of sharing and everything like that.

I’m not saying that traditional authors are not. Please don’t misunderstand me, but I like the idea of sharing and having that backlist mindset because we spend so long writing our books and then for them to just be like, ‘Okay. Your publishing season’s over, let’s move on to the next.’

And then the other ones are forgotten, which doesn’t really make so to an author because our books are our books and they’re our babies. And so my mindset is 100% indie right now and I think it would have to be a very, very good deal for me to go back to trad.

Joanna: It’s interesting because, of course, your mindset, you said things are quite different to 2012 and your mindset there, you’re very empowered now, you know what you are doing. But I do feel, with rights reversion, that many authors feel disappointed.

They might be embarrassed, some even ashamed that things didn’t work out with their publisher because some authors are like, ‘Oh, it’s my fault that I didn’t sell enough books, and therefore, this book isn’t good enough and there’s no point in getting the rights reverted because how would it sell next time?’

What would you say to authors who don’t feel empowered and have these negative thoughts around rights reversion?

Katlyn: First of all, I would say you’re 100% not alone. I felt that way for a very long time, to be honest. We put a lot of ourselves into our books and then you get with a publisher and you hope that they will fulfill their end of the deal for much longer than probably we understand and then if the book doesn’t sell or it’s not selling later, it’s absolutely devastating.

I was definitely in that dark place for a little bit. But as I expanded my network of author friends I realized that this wasn’t something that is isolated to that one person, it happens to all of us, and talking about these things with other authors and talking about the good and the bad is very important.

At the end of the day, we’re in charge of how our careers pan out.

So we want to make sure that we are educated in that sense of knowing the industry and what the things you can and cannot do. So I would definitely recommend doing your research about the industry and making sure that you have enough people to talk to about all of these things.

Joanna: That’s why I’m really glad you wrote this book. There are lots of books on rights now, but I think rights reversion is a very specific thing and you’ve got some great steps in there. It’s very practical. So I do recommend it.

And it’s becoming much more common because authors are becoming more empowered, but equally, what we’ve seen in the pandemic and the switch to publishers may be starting to appreciate their backlist, it might be becoming harder for some people to get their intellectual property back. Have you seen anything change in the last 18 months or so?

Katlyn: I’ve seen a positive change, as you mentioned, with people talking about things, but I think that because so many people are speaking out, because so many authors are becoming more empowered, I think the trad industry may catch up to that too.

I’m sure they’re doing their due diligence as well. They are a business, so that they want to keep authors as much as they can because they’re in the business of selling books too. But I would just say the biggest change I’ve seen is very much authors speaking out and talking to each other and helping each other out.

Joanna: Exactly. And also, you can find recommendations for attorneys and lawyers, and people to help take it up a notch.

I think that’s the other thing; go into it as a gentle email, ask nicely, know your rights, know what you’ve signed, all of that. And then you might have to go up this ladder of taking it to in a more serious way and certain wording and certain emails and that type of thing.

It’s almost like an escalating way to get your rights back, but certainly starting with a nice email. And this is why I think just going back to it, it’s that contract that you sign at the beginning. If you sign a good contract, then it shouldn’t be difficult.

Many people signed contracts years ago and didn’t really know what they signed.

Katlyn: Yes. And also too, as I said, I did hire lawyers in the past, but I was the one to negotiate. And there is that nice thing you say and then it gets escalated and you have to determine whether or not what you really want, if a particular clause, you want changed or a royalty structure or anything like that.

You have to figure out what your sticking point is and be prepared sometimes to walk away with some of these contracts if you don’t feel comfortable signing it or you are really sticking in about something. It’s scary, but definitely be prepared to walk away if you need to.

Joanna: And that goes for agent contracts too. I was just thinking of, at one point I was offered a contract with an agency and it said we will take 15% of sale of all books published under your name regardless of whether they are self-published or not because we believe we are building your brand. So we get a percentage of all your books.

Katlyn: That’s crazy.

Joanna: I know. And I’m not going to give any names, obviously, with this pretty high-profile agency with some pretty famous clients. It was one of those situations where I thought, ‘Well, I could be the next big-name author if this is what this agency can do.’ On the other hand, I’d already been working for like eight years building up my author brand.

And I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do that.’ Just hand over everything to do with my author name. Thinking about it now, maybe I could have started a new author name or something with them, but it’s funny, these things come up and as you say, you have to try and take that empowered sense.

Even if you’re not feeling very empowered, you have to think, ‘I am worth something. Can I negotiate this contract or what should I do?’ Really think long-term.

Katlyn: Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that’s really shifted. As I said, I befriended a lot of self-published authors, a lot of indie authors, and it just seems like the world has opened up so much because it’s like, no, you don’t just write this book and then it gets forgotten.

You can do as many things as you want with it. And you have to look very much long term in that sense with your book and not just okay, ‘When is the book going to launch? Okay. When is the next book going to come out?’ Type of thing.

Joanna: Oh, good. Well, that’s very encouraging and I highly recommend your book Take Back Your Book.

Where can people find you and everything you do you online?

Katlyn: My main hub, the easiest is my website at katlynduncan.com, K-AT-L-Y-N-D-U-N-C-A-N.com. And my YouTube channel and all my socials are on there and all of my books are wide.

I also sell on Payhip, thanks to you, Joanna, for talking about that so much. So I do sell direct through my website and that’s really my go-to now when I buy books from you and other authors. I try to see if they sell on their website. So yeah, that’s where you can find me mostly, is on my website.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Katlyn. That was great.

Katlyn: Thank you.

The post Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms With Katlyn Duncan first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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Author: Joanna Penn

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Date:
  • January 23, 2022
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