What to do when your publisher dies? ‹ CrimeReads

There’s no better place to learn that every book you’ve ever written is about to go out of print. But I imagine 30,000 feet in the air, two weeks after having a baby, isn’t exactly the preferred way to hear that particular piece of bad news.

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Halfway through a cross-country flight to my little brother’s wedding, I got a Facebook message from a friend telling me that Polis Books was about to close. The Jersey-based independent crime publisher—which had turned around names like Rob Hart, Cynthia Pelayo, Alex Segura, and many others—was the home of my Russell Avery series. The only two books I’d ever published were about to disappear from every shelf except the ones in my house. The third book in the series, which I’d sold to Polis last year but foolishly written most of before getting my advance, was now homeless.

I’m not one of those writers who is blessed with a lot of self-confidence, and so I quickly found myself in a downward spiral. You haven’t published a book since 2021. Now no one will take you on. That’s what happens when you can’t find a major publisher. In a way, that’s your fault.

Polis isn’t the first indie publisher to close, of course, and sadly it won’t be the last. But the end of your publisher’s story isn’t the end of yours. I’ve had a few months to get through the despair of losing my only foothold in the publishing industry and come out stronger on the other side. In the hopes of making this rollercoaster ride a little smoother for the next generation of authors, I’ve chatted with a few other authors whose work had previously fallen by the wayside due to the industry’s collapse to put together a survival guide on what to do when your publisher dies.

Step 1: Grieve before you struggle.

First of all, be kind to yourself.

Few, if any, reactions to this situation are overly dramatic. Something you created, that you spent weeks, months, and years turning from an idea in the shower or at the grocery store into a publishable work, has simply vanished, probably without warning. Get whatever comfort food you need. Pour yourself another glass of wine. Watch a book in one sitting. Do whatever you need to do to distract yourself from the crater created by your publisher’s demise.

I ended up at my brother’s wedding in Virginia and suppressed the news with sliders and Irish whiskey and didn’t tell a soul in my family or friends what had happened for days. Heather Levy, another Polis survivor – whose sex-positive, Anthony-nominated debut Going through needles was published by Polis in 2021 – said she ate something edible and “cried heartily (or three times).” Then she thought about what would come next.

“That’s the best advice I can give to writers in unfortunate situations like this: Always look forward,” said Levy, who has now published her second novel. It hurts me, to recognition from Thomas & Mercer. “The only thing you can control in publishing is your writing, and it was your writing that got you a book deal in the first place. Focus on what’s next and make it the best damn story you can.”

Step two: Know your rights/There is no right way

The consequences of a publisher going bankrupt can be a huge burden for an author, especially for those who do not have their own publishing agent, which is common with independent publishers.

When a publisher announces its closure, you will most likely have three options:

• Assert your rights and try to place the books with another publisher.
• Have the publisher try to sell your books to another publisher through a catalog sale.
• Patience.

Each path has its advantages and disadvantages, of course, so you have to choose the path that makes the most sense for you. The general wisdom in publishing is that republishing an existing work or series can be an uphill battle, since most publishers assume a book has already reached its audience. And if you return your rights without an agent, you may have to approach publishers with your head down and struggle to negotiate a good deal, or any deal at all. At the same time, returning the rights means you have complete control over what happens to your work, and you control the terms of a sale.

Letting your soon-to-be-bankrupt publisher decide your fate might make a sale easier—according to a recent article in Publisher’s Weekly, 18 authors from Polis’s backlist have had their books, in some cases entire series, acquired by Datura—but such an arrangement gives you no say in the terms. Your books could end up with a publisher you don’t like, and it’s unlikely you’ll make much or anything from the sale.

The trade-off, of course, is that your books live on without any fuss. In the months when I knew the best way to buy a Russell Avery novel was from a box in my garage, that seemed acceptable.

The third option, waiting, may seem the most counterintuitive. Your publishing career is hanging by a thread, don’t you have to do something now? Well, patience paid off for an unnecessarily humble superstar author named Kellye Garrett.

Before the release of her breakthrough in 2022 Like a sister, Garrett was the author of the Detective by Day crime novels for Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewyn Worldwide. The books, part cozy, part Hollywood satire, received rave reviews, and Garrett was working on the third when Midnight Ink announced its cancellation in 2018.

“I always say that if you asked Kellye, who debuted in 2017, where she would be in 2024, she would tell you she would be publishing her eighth Detective by Day mystery,” Garrett said. “I started my career with every intention of just writing my fun little ‘Black Girl Finally Solves a Crime’ series.”

What others might have perceived as a punch in the stomach, Garrett saw as an opportunity for redesign.

“To be honest, I was already struggling with writing a third book when I got the news. I give credit to people like Janet Evanovich, who have written over 30 books in a series, because I made the same jokes in every book while trying (and failing) to balance what people liked about the first two books with something new and exciting,” she said. “I was burned out and wondering if I should take a break for a while.”

Which brings us to …

Step 3: See it as an opportunity.

I will always owe the start of my publishing career to Jason Pinter and Polis Books. He said yes to my debut novel when many other publishers said no, and showed unrivalled enthusiasm for the misadventures of my former Jersey journalist. Dozens of authors would surely tell similar stories of Polis as a springboard, and Pinter handled the closure of the publishing house as well as one could hope.

But let’s be honest, a publisher that has fallen into disrepute is not good for your career. It’s fair to ask whether your books received the maximum possible support from a company that was losing money.

Losing your publisher can be a disaster. But it can also be a second chance.

For Garrett, this meant time to work on her independent, Like a sister, which catapulted her career into new heights. The offers she received to revive the Detective by Day series were all contingent on her writing a sequel, which she had no desire to do.

Patricia Smith’s debut novel, Remember, was one of three debut titles from Polis’ diversity-focused imprint Agora in 2019. The book received blurbs from Garrett and New York Times bestselling author Alafair Burke, but the young author hadn’t published anything in the five years since while she worked on her follow-up and earned her degree in film.

Like me, Smith thought her writing career was over when Polis announced its closure. She didn’t have an agent and was admittedly confused by the discussions about whether to give back her rights or let Polis sell the book elsewhere. So she turned to one of her college professors, who was starting a literary agency, and found herself in a position of representation after Polis collapsed. Now Smith’s book – which had disappeared from shelves in the years since – will get a new lease of life as part of Polis’s bulk sale to Datura.

For Smith, giving back her rights may have been a mistake that she said her colleagues advised her against.

“If you’re an aspiring author and you publish your work without an agent, let’s say you find other authors. If I didn’t have someone like you, I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. “Find other people, form your circle.”

That final piece of advice from Patricia also helped save Russell. I was inclined to put my books in Polis’ hands to save them, convinced that it was impossible to transfer an ongoing series to a new publisher. But several people in my Discord for authors (sup, Escape From Twitter Mountain) convinced me that my books had received enough praise and sold well enough that there would be a market for them. A little over three months after I learned of Polis’s crash in that plane, I signed a deal with the good folks at Counterpoint to republish the first two Russell Avery novels and the next book in the series. Surviving the lie, is due to be published sometime in the not too distant future. I went from a publisher that was no longer able to survive to one that distributes its books through Penguin Random House within a quarter.

All of this is to say that there is no straight path from the collapse of your publishing house to your next publishing house, but there are paths. You can despair, but then you can do something about it. Whether through a new project, a rights transfer, or trying to revive your books on your own, the closure of your publishing house is the end of its story. It is not the end of yours.