Q&A Friday

Am I Allowed? Edition

Friends!

Is it spring yet? No? Ugh. Let’s answer some questions to keep warm.

L asks: I'm in the final stages of writing my second SF novel (still querying the first one), and as I excitedly work on outlining everything I want to write next, I realize all the stories I want to write about for the next several years will be set in the same universe, with the same settings and same background characters (even if they're not sequels). A couple of published author friends told me this means I should stop querying and accept self-publishing as my only path, since no publishing house will allow me to reuse settings and characters from a book they've published in a book they decide not to; and in fact, that if they rejected a manuscript and I went ahead and published it elsewhere, since it's "connected" via the shared universe, there would be not only legal implications, but it would make them less interested in accepting future manuscripts set in the same universe (as it might create a soft story dependency on a different publisher).

Have you seen publishing contracts (either in major or niche publishers) that allow authors this flexibility (publish in different houses if manuscript is declined, but keep sharing universe and characters)? Or is this such an improbability that I should pivot and plan for self-publishing?

Your friends are wrong!!