An Open Letter to Authors about Signing Away the Rights to Creative Work

An Open Letter to Authors about Signing Away the Rights to Creative Work

Patricia Leavy

Breaking into the world of fiction is so difficult and discouraging. Authors may find themselves settling for less than they want, because they don’t think they can do any better. I learned this lesson the hard way. When I wrote my debut novel, Low-Fat Love, ten years ago, I encountered many of the challenges novelists typically face—stacks of rejections. It seemed like it would be impossible to publish. I was already an established nonfiction author, but this was a different playing field. 

Ultimately, I came up with a creative pitch and convinced a small, indie publisher to take it on.

I am grateful for the opportunity, but also want to candidly share my experience. They offered no peer review, editorial feedback, copy editing, or even assistance writing the back cover copy. I was even saddled with the production costs. Despite that I was doing all this work, I lost a fair amount of control—for example, they wouldn’t allow the style of the book cover I wanted, they refused to publish an e-book for Kindle, and we did not agree on the book’s price point (which I felt was way over market value). To gain traction with the book, I hired an expensive publicist.

Compelled to make the most of it, there was no opportunity I would pass up—writing blogs, doing small radio shows, promoting the book on social media, and so on. Like many authors, I accepted this publishing arrangement, just to get my book out.

There was one thing that always nagged me in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t that the publisher earned the vast majority of profits from the book (which they did as is usually the case with traditional publishing). I had sold the rights—copyright and everything else. I no longer owned my creative work. This didn’t feel right, but at the time, I sucked it up, you know, desperate author and all just trying to get her work into the world. 

Then something remarkable happened. To my genuine surprise, and thanks to the support of friends and colleagues, the book did well. It became my indie publisher’s highest selling book for two years in a row. Readers embraced it in ways I could not have anticipated. It’s a raw novel and people saw themselves reflected in the pages.

Many readers sent me emails, direct messages, or sought me out at book events to tell me how much the novel meant to them, how it resonated, and how they carried the story and message with them. Many even pulled me close to whisper their own stories of low-fat love (settling in life and love while struggling with self-esteem). Ten years later, I still receive messages about the book. The publisher even released a new, special edition of the novel, with a statement by the owner commenting on its success and “cult classic” status. 

Eventually, that small press was going to be sold to a much larger publishing house, a publicly traded company, with a more than 300-year history. Uncertain what this would mean for my work, I asked my original publisher, in light of everything I had done, to revert the rights of the book back to me (as well as subsequent books). He agreed. While it was an imperfect publishing partnership, he was honorable. For the first time since I wrote it, I owned my novel again. It felt great. Sadly, this would be temporary.

The big publishing house that I was now a part of, promised the sun and the moon. They boasted about their global reach, their deeper pockets, and their hundreds of years of experience. Hoping this was the answer I had been searching for, I drank the Kool-Aid, and allowed them to rerelease Low-Fat Love in a compilation of my novels.

Sadly, many of the same issues persisted—no peer review, editorial feedback, copy editing, or marketing assistance. Worse than my original publisher, they even failed to get books to events I had scheduled, and their printer outright cancelled some large orders (I know, unbelievable).

Then something egregious happened, something I could not get over. As a result solely of my efforts, a foreign publisher wanted to do a Chinese translation of the book. Despite my publisher’s 300+ years experience, they botched the deal, failing to even respond to emails for months on end. The opportunity was lost.

All I could think about was that they owned this work. Had I owned the book, I would have been able to negotiate the foreign translation contract myself. At this point, I was established in fiction, with several published novels. I wanted them all back, and I never wanted to sign away the rights to my creative work again. For better or worse, I had leverage. I had dozens of breaches of contract—my publisher didn’t have any legal or moral ground to stand on.

At the time, they also wanted me to stay on board, as we had many projects in the pipeline. While there are different ways I could have used that leverage, I chose to fight for the rights to my novels. Nothing else mattered to me. We came to a contractual agreement whereby all rights were reverted to me—copyright, licensing, translations, electronic, and the right to put out new editions. I owned my books in full.

The publisher became a distributor of the existing English language versions of the books. This is the very kind of licensing deal novelists should be signing in the first place. Artists should own their work. Publishers should engage in partnerships to distribute that work—licensing deals (which is the basis of hybrid publishing, for example). In addition to past works, I’ve published five more novels under this deal. And if you’re wondering about that lost Chinese translation deal, once I regained my rights, I contacted the publisher and negotiated a deal for four of my novels. 

The truth is, I’ve been luckier than most. I wake up each day and do something I love. I’ve been able to make a career as a full-time author for a long time, across genres, working with a wide range of publishers (some of whom are terrific). My books have found readers, and many have received awards.

That said, nothing, and I mean nothing, has felt as good as owning my creative work. Even if it were worthless to everyone else, it would be invaluable to me. It’s no wonder I’ve produced more in the last few years than in the decades before. Freedom fuels creativity. If you don’t believe me, look at how much music Taylor Swift created in the last two years—now that she owns her work.

Ten years after its initial debut, I’ve recently released Low-Fat Love: 10th Anniversary Edition, under my own imprint. Finally, I’m able to share the version of the novel I always intended. I revised the entire novel, wrote a brand-new ending, and invited one of my all-time favorite authors to write a foreword.

It even has the original cover design I had wanted all those years ago. The funny thing is that Low-Fat Love is about women settling in life and love because they don’t think they can get what they really want. It’s about letting our insecurities guide us. It’s about detangling from toxic relationships. New and old readers have told me it resonates, inspires, and motivates them. Ironically, in my desperation to publish it, I myself ended up settling. All these years, and a dozen novels later, I’ve finally learned the real lesson of this little book. Never settle. Never undersell your work. Always bet on yourself. Love yourself first. Be your own champion. Oh yeah, and think long and hard before signing away the rights to your creative work. 

Low-Fat Love: 10th Anniversary Edition is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Low-Fat-Love-Anniversary-Patricia-Leavy/dp/0578891883 

 

LOW-FAT LOVE

Prilly Greene lives between who she is and who she longs to be. She moved to New York City in search of a “big life.” Despite her job at a publishing house and weekends spent racing around the city, she’s painfully lonely. She falls for Pete Rice, an unemployed, charming, ever-sexy aspiring graphic novelist.

Prilly thinks she is finally experiencing the big life she always sought but feared was beyond her grasp. Pete’s unconventional, free-spirited views on relationships unsettle Prilly, ultimately causing her to unravel over the course of their on-again, off-again love affair. Meanwhile, her colleague Janice Goldwyn, a workaholic, feminist-in-name-only editor, undercuts her professional identity at every turn. Janice’s “picture-perfect” life is set on a new course when her alcoholic father is injured in a car accident and she is forced to face her own demons.

Ultimately, each woman is pushed to confront her own self-image and reasons for having settled for low-fat love. Along with Prilly and Janice, a cast of characters’ stories are interwoven throughout the book. The offbeat characters include Melville, Pete’s awkward friend who lives one beat outside the moment; Jacob, Melville’s younger, pothead brother; Kyle, Janice’s seventeen-year-old son, who appears ordinary in every way but is actually quite extraordinary; and Tash, Kyle’s wild, sexpot cousin who ends up dating Jacob.

Low-Fat Love is a novel about the struggle to overcome the secret fear that we are not enough so that we can reimagine ourselves and truly live a “big life.”

“Low-Fat Love proves the astonishing talent that Leavy possesses as both a writer and social commentator. Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Girls meets Sex and the City, but all with Leavy’s raw honesty and clever wit. This is one of my favorite books with a message I can’t shake.” – U. Melissa Anyiwo, Ph.D., editor of Gender Warriors

About Patricia

Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., is a bestselling author. She has published over thirty-five books, earning commercial and critical success in both fiction and nonfiction, and her work has been translated into many languages. She has also served as series creator and editor for ten book series with Oxford University Press, Guilford Press, and Brill/Sense, including the ground-breaking Social Fictions series. Patricia has received dozens of accolades for her books.

Recently, her novel Shooting Stars won the 2021 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite Contemporary Novel, her novel Film won the 2021 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite Chick-Lit and the 2020 American Fiction Award for Inspirational Fiction, her 3-novel set Candy Floss Collection won the 2020 American Fiction Award for Anthologies, and her novel Spark won the 2021 National Indie Excellence New Adult Fiction, the 2019 American Fiction Award for Inspirational Fiction, and the 2019 Living Now Book Award for Adventure Fiction.

She has also received career awards from the New England Sociological Association, the American Creativity Association, the American Educational Research Association, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the National Art Education Association. In 2016 Mogul, a global women’s empowerment network, named her an “Influencer.” In 2018, she was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame and SUNY-New Paltz established the “Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice.” 

Website: www.patricialeavy.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomenWhoWrite/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patricialeavy 

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips