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How to sell books without giving up rights to my manuscript [closed]

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Closed by System‭ on Dec 1, 2016 at 09:05

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I just finished the first of a series of children's books and ready to sell. How does one sell their book without giving up all rights to it?

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This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25382. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Traditionally, your rights revert to you after a specified period of time when the book is out of print. However, be cautious! In recent times, publishers have been able to circumvent this by placing books into perpetual "print-on-demand" limbo. If you don't want that to happen to your book, make sure you cover it in your contract. That's one of the main reasons it's good to have an agent, even if you can sell your book yourself.

However, you may be putting the cart ahead of the horse. Most writers face their biggest hurdle in getting someone interested in publishing their book, not in protecting their rights to it.

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That's what a contract does. You, and ideally your agent, negotiate a contract with a publisher. The contract specifies what rights you are allowing the publisher to have in exchange for distribution and printing, and how the exchange of money works.

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