Publishing Previously Published Work

Though there are nearly two-hundred thousand new books published in the U.S. every year, there are of course many more that were previously published but no longer available. Many of those undoubtedly fell into obscurity for a good reason, but many are excellent books that might be worth bringing back.

If you're interested in publishing a previously published work, one of the first things you'll want to do is determine your project's public domain or copyright status. Particularly, if it's still in copyright you'll want to start work to clear it as soon as possible, as without copyright clearance your project can't be published.

Public Domain 

The first kind of previously published work is that in the public domain. At its simplest definition, works published in the United States prior to 1923 are in the public domain. However, there are many exceptions and we always recommend consulting the information at Cornell University's Copyright Information Center. For books that are public domain, you need not get permission from anyone to publish a new edition of it. Just a couple things to keep in mind: Because it's public domain, anyone can release their own edition to compete with yours. They can even release free digital editions, like the ones you'll find with Project Gutenberg and other similar sites. Second, if the book was first published in another country its copyright term is defined by that country's laws, so check carefully. Last, individual translations are a copyright of their own. So though a particular book may be in the public domain, you can't work with a version of it that's an in-copyright translation.

In Copyright, Out of Print

If the book you're working on is not public domain but rather is still in copyright, you need permission to reprint it. Getting permission to reprint basically means finding the current copyright holder and paying them for the use of their work.

The copyright holder is most often (but not always) the author, the author's estate, or the original publisher, and these are the sources you should start with. Simple enough to start, but it gets particularly tricky when an author's estate has gone to a secondary relative you can't track down, or when the original publisher has gone bankrupt. Situations like these often lead to what are called "orphan works". These are works which are out of print and in copyright, and where the copyright holder can't be located to clear permission for reprinting or other use of the original work. In this case, if your project is an "orphan", it can't be republished by Hol.

If you do find the copyright holder, like everyone else involved in project books at Hol, you will be offering to pay them a share of the book's sales for their participation—in this case, for their permission to republish the work. Also like everyone else involved, the specific percentage you pay will be part of what your team will figure out together (see our financial page for more). Take note though, traditionally authors and publishers are paid for reprint permissions on the copyrights they hold with at least some up-front fee. So, offering a straight percentage of sales may not seem to them the best first choice. But there are some good reasons why you should be confident in approaching them anyway:

• Unless they happen to be talking to other publishers about reprinting, you're offering them revenue on work they own that otherwise would not be earning them anything.
• Regardless of other interest from other publishers, Hol is the only publisher dedicated to publishing writing on visual art and will be the best choice for publishing their work.
• Re-publication of the older work you're interested can help them promote other more recent works they still have in print.
• You're passionate about the work and will assemble a talented team equally dedicated to the book's success.

Once you've secured their participation, along with determining their financial share, you'll also want to determine their share in the day-to-day work of the project team. Again this is up to you and your team, and they may be as involved or uninvolved as you all agree works for the project.  In cases where you're dealing with a publisher they may not be involved at all, whereas with an author, you might even require they be involved, particularly in the publicity of the book when it's released.

New Editions of Current Titles

The way book publishing works is that publishers of original works often acquire (from the author) the rights to publish the work in other formats like hardcover, paperback, audio, ebooks, and foreign language editions. The original publisher will then put out the original hardcover edition themselves, and sell the rights to the other formats to other publishers. What this means is that if you know of a great recent book that is currently available in hardcover, you might be able to get permission from the original publisher to print a new edition in paperback. Same thing if you're interested in doing an English translation of a current foreign language work. The original foreign language publisher may be looking to sell rights for an English edition.

Dealing with a publisher on a new edition like this, is much the same as dealing with them for an out of print work. You're looking to make contact with them and to acquire the rights to publish a new edition. Specifically, you're looking to acquire English language paperback rights for North America.

For popular books, or potentially popular books, acquiring the rights to a new edition will be out of reach to all but the largest, most deep-pocketed publishers. For your purposes, the option of a new edition of a current title will really work best for books with a more modest reach. And then you may run into resistance as publishers of books like this may not want to publish a paperback edition if they fear it will compete with their hardcover, or if they feel the market for the book isn't big enough to support both editions. On the flip side, you're publication of a new paperback could promote their hardcover too, or better yet, could promote their next new hardcover release by that author, or in that subject.

Bringing it up to Date 

Perhaps second in importance only to clearing copyright, when working with any previously published work, you and your team will want to work to bring the book up to date and to distinguish it from other available editions (including available used copies). This might mean adding customized information like an annotated bibliography of related works, or a listing of the location of art works that are mentioned in the text. And with older books, you might consider adding a new response to the piece as an afterword. While you probably don't want to re-edit the piece without the author involved, you can take the opportunity with a secondary essay to update the scholarship, respond to any criticism of the work, and bring it back to a critical place in contemporary writing and thought.