Thank you.

My publisher didn’t want to let me keep copyright the first time we negotiated the book which caused the initial deal to collapse (they came back a year later)… apparently, it is common in a lot of technical books for the publisher to have the copyright. Madness!

Having spent 25+ years reading contracts for a living, I was singularly appalled by my publishing contract.

I used to do this. These days, I would advise doing the opposite. That is, send the first letter, and then do nothing until the reversion period expires. Precisely because publishers are clinging fervently to rights these days, EVEN in contracts where they did NOT makle any provision for ebook/digital rights (see my above comment about publishers increasingly clinging even to print-only rights, possibly because they’re hoping HarperCollins will prevail in its lawsuit against Open Road), I think the best way to get old rights reverted right now is to count on the traditional intertia and disorganization of publishers and their rights departments.

If you keep reminding a publisher that you’re trying to get your rights back, these it’s likely that you will just inspire them to find a way to prevent reversion.

You’re in a much stronger position if, instead, they stick your reversion letter in a stack which falls behind someone’s desk, and the next time they hear from you or think about this matter is when you contact them AFTER the reversion period has expired in order to NOTIFY them that it has expired and under the terms of the contract, automatic reversion has occurred, and you’re just writing to them to advise them of this and ask them to acknowledge this fact. (At which point, yes, if you want paperwork from the publisher acknowledging reversion–which it is a good idea to get, to keep things clear and simple for you in future transactins–THEN you will indeed need to follow up regularly.)

And there’s no reason at all not to have ALL THREE – and in fact, I usually do (or at least have a fairly expensive renewal option separate from the GMR.) This is why I insert my little disclaimers: there’s no way I could bring up every consideration that goes into this kind of thing in the real world.