Dear Susanne Winter, I hope you can help me with this; I had a book of short stories published here in London in 2005 by a publisher that subsequently went burst. They did not do a good job of what was supposed to be a fundraising efforts to help Sierra Leonean writers and their newly established PEN center. It was published but we did not get a penny from the sales nor a report. I want to have this anthology of short stories re-published by Vanity or Pegasus. Is it possible?
Hi, Michael!
If you read all the comments on Suzanne's own post re: vanity publishers, you should know to STAY AWAY from them. They AREN'T going to make any money for "Sierra Leonean writers and their newly established PEN center": only for themselves. You will end up with much less money than you have now. Suzanne, herself, has decided to turn them down.
The real question here is: If you signed the rights to the book of short stories over to the publishers who went bust, I'm not sure whether you'll be ALLOWED to publish them elsewhere. Legally, the publishers will have that right (and if they've gone bust, the rights might have passed to their creditors).
For many years, it has been a dream of mine to republish one of the best picture books for children that I've ever come across. (It's also a favourite with the head of the Illustration department of a British university, who would ALSO like to see it back in print.) The publishers disappeared in the 1970s and I can't locate the author or the illustrator. A classic book seems doomed to oblivion because of copyright law.
Thank you. I appreciate.
Hello Michael, if you are determined to go through the Vanity Publishing route then the two main publishers are Pegasus Publishing in Cambridge and Austin Macauley at Canary Wharf London.
Access their services via their websites. Good luck.