Rights Reversion News Books 1-4 (U.S.)

Or . . . where are the ebooks for Books 1-4 in the U.S.?

​What happened is actually good news, so read on.

My first four DT books were originally published by St. Martin’s Griffin and they purchased what the industry calls the North American English rights. This included audio, print and e-book editions. They subsequently sold some of the sub-rights, in particular the foreign translation rights to various publishers around the world (Germany, etc.) as well as the English rights for the remainder of the world to Macmillan Children’s Books in the U.K.

As the sales of these books (in the U.S.) have fallen below certain specified levels indicated in the contracts, I requested those rights be reverted. St. Martin’s, to their credit, agreed to do so. Not all publishers are so inclined and will, in fact, go out of their way never to revert these rights. So I'm cheering at this point.

I may now independently publish and sell these books in North America in the English language. This includes Canada, but not the remainder of the world.

So what does this mean to you? First of all, the e-books for Books 1-4 have vanished from the various online US sites like Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, etc. You may see print copies out there and those will continue to be sold until St. Martin’s runs out of them. Also, third parties sell copies of those as well.

Since these books are now back in my hands I will need to 1) get all new covers 2) have the books typeset in print and e-book formats 3) completely proof those editions and 4) launch them online.

This will be a lot of work and none of it is going to be go quickly. Especially since my cover artist can’t start on my new covers until June. (Clarissa Yeo of Yocla Designs created the last four DT covers and she’s so talented she’s booked out several months in advance.)

The Good News: The price of the e-books will drop **considerably.** I’m guessing they’ll be $3.99-$4.99 each rather than $9.99 - $11.99. The print book prices will drop, as well, though probably not as low as St. Martin’s original $9.99 because of short run printing costs.

Other than the new covers, there were be ***very few changes*** between the original books and the re-launched ones. A tweak here, or there, at most. No new scenes, nothing like that, so there is NO NEED TO BUY the new books if you already have them. Enjoy the copies you have and I thank you for supporting me all these years! However, if you’re giving them as gifts or trying to lure your friends into the series, you'll find them a lot more affordable.

Given the continued need to stay at home due to the plague, the rights reversion came at the perfect time for me to get these done. I’ll be sure to post my progress as I work through each manuscript, including some whinging about the endless proofing required for four complete books. (Just ignore that part.) But in the end they’ll all be in my hands and that’s really, really good news for everyone.

​And I just have to add "WHEE!"