Publishing Question

[laura-carter1]

Hi, everyone!

I'm hopeful that someone can help me out here. I had a YA dystopian duology published by a (legitimate) small press in 2016 (first book - THE ELECT) and 2019 (second book - RESTORATION). That publisher folded during the pandemic, and all my rights reverted back to me. I know the VAST majority of agents and publishers have zero interest in previously-published work, but does anyone perhaps know of an agent or publisher who actually is? Or should I go ahead and self-publish if I want these books back in circulation?

I have two forthcoming picture books from Familius Press and have been represented by agents before, so I'm not a total newbie, but this decision about my YA novels really has me stumped.

Thanks in advance for your insight and advice!

[Debbie Vilardi]

My understanding as someone who's had friends in this position but never even had an agent is that self publishing is your only option unless your books were huge sellers in your initial printings. (That said, I believe there is a publisher who brings back out-of-print works, but I can't remember which one or if they even do novels. They show up in Children's Bookshelf once in a while. And, of course, they most likely also look at initial sales and awards.)

[Vijaya]

Laura. A couple of my friends have had their novels go out of print so they simply republished them themselves. Sales weren't great to begin with, so they didn't try to sell the rights to another publisher. What they did is to redo the cover to reflect better the type of story it was. Though self-publishing isn't a walk in the park, at least you'd have the books in circulation again while you learn how to do some marketing. Good luck and Congratulations on the new books coming out from Familius.

ETA: I only know of some publishers who are publishing out of print Catholic classics.

[laura-carter1]

Thank you both! I figured this would be the response. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to rewriting it or self-publishing it. 🙂