A friend of mine had a children's book packaged some years ago and I recently noticed that the packager's website catalogue still sells the book, but in certain countries it seems that the rights have been reverted. Does anyone know what this means exactly and is it in favour of the author or packager?
Thanks Jonathan, I think he is going to try and chase them up about it but they're rather elusive :-)
If they're a different company they may have 'sold' the rights to the new one without telling the author - there's often a contractual clause which allows this but I understand it's most often used to transfer a book between related companies (like it moving to a different imprint).
If the book is no longer in print you can request a reversion, but again there ought to be a clause in the contract specifying how long it has to be out before a reversion can be granted.
Best of luck :)
Thanks Ellen, I shall pass that onto him to see if he can get in touch with them (they went bust and started up again using a different name I think). Much appreciated