An Indie Success Story: Donna Fasano

Donna Fasano And Her Publishing Journey

Donna Fasano wrote for a traditional publisher for nearly 20 years and published 32 romance novels that sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide.

3.5 million!

Do you know how much her royalty was? 2% to 6%! Still, Donna was able to put her kids through college and do nifty things like take vacations. And, besides, when Donna started writing there was no alternative to traditional publishing. Now, of course, there is.

Once Donna realized what self-publishing could do for her she wrote to her publisher and got the rights back to 10 of her books.

Since then Donna has sold ... wait for it ... 120,000 copies of those previously out-of-print books! I hope Donna doesn't mind but I did some quick calculations. If she sold each book for, say, $3.00 and received a royalty of around 70% she would receive well over $200,000!

No wonder publishers don't want to give authors their rights back!

Reversion Of Rights: How To Get Your Rights Back

It can be brutally difficult to get your rights back. Often the publishing contract is unclear regarding what needs to be done and publishers drag their feet at every step of the process hoping you'll give up. (see: Doing What's Right: How To Get The Rights To Your Books Reverted)

Donna Fasano went to a lawyer for help, David P. Vandagriff of The Passive Voice Blog. In her superlative blog post Donna steps you through what she did and sings David's praises. Her article is well worth reading, even if you've never traditionally published: Going Indie: from OOP to self-pub bestseller.

Thanks to Passive Guy for posting a link to Donna's article.

Other articles you might like:

- David Mamet On How To Write A Great Story
- How To Earn A Living As A Self-Published Writer
- Third Person Omniscient, Third Person Limited or First Person. Which Point of View Is Right For You?

Photo credit: "Mystical station" by Jsome1 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.