Chris Webb

The New York Times is reporting on Simon and Schuster’s new approach to books going out of print.

Traditionally, if a book falls out of print, authors are contractually allowed to ask their publishers for their rights back so that the author can try to have the book republished somewhere else.

Until recently, that has meant that if a book was not available in at least one format — hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback being the most common — or if sales fell below a minimum annual threshold, it was deemed out of print.

But with the advent of technologies like print-on-demand, publishers have been able to reduce the number of back copies that they keep in warehouses. Simon & Schuster, which until now has required that a book sell a minimum number of copies through print-on-demand technology to be deemed in print, has removed that lower limit in its new contract.

Currently, editors in Wiley’s Technology Division are allowed to negotiate this portion of our contract and determine a minimum sales requirement when books are only available as print on demand (PoD.)

Although I understand authors’ desire to reacquire the rights to their title when they feel it is not sufficiently being sold by their publisher, once a book has reached this point in its life it is a long shot to be successfully placed as an in-print (non-PoD) title elsewhere. As S&S is discovering, there may be life for books as a PoD titles but the same services that make it easy for the Publisher to offer the book as print on demand are also available to the author.

I’d be curious to hear any success stories from authors who have reacquired the rights to their out of print books and placed them as an in-print title with another publisher, or those who have made the books available themselves as print on demand.

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