Philippa Werry
“After Enemy at the Gate was first published, I was surprised and moved by people telling me their own polio stories…
People who spent months in hospital; a woman who nursed iron lung patients; others who remembered a seemingly endless, idyllic summer because schools were closed.
A few years and several reprints later, the publishers of the book wrote me a letter saying that the copyright in it and another of my junior YA titles The Great Chocolate Bake Off had reverted to me. At the time, it felt a little disappointing because it meant that these books would be out of print. But I see now that it was an opportunity.
Enemy at the Gate takes place during New Zealand’s 1930s polio epidemic and has a lot of parallels with children’s recent experiences of COVID. The book was inspired by stories told to me by my father-in-law and I set it in Lyall Bay, where my own father grew up. During the nationwide COVID lockdown, I came across posts from teachers looking for relevant reading material for their classes. Several recommended my book and contacted me asking how they could get hold of a copy. I decided to release it again myself, under my own imprint, Pipi Press.
I thought, if I was releasing one book, I might as well release two. The Great Chocolate Bake Off is a more contemporary and lighthearted story. It’s been one of the most loved of all my books. I’ve received so many letters about it over the years. When my oldest daughter got married, a cousin of my new son-in-law told me how excited he was to find a family connection with the author of his favourite childhood book! All this inspired me to make it available for a new generation of young readers.
The first thing I did, when I started to think about republishing these books, was to dig out that letter from the publishers to check I could go ahead, and I also contacted them, as a courtesy, to let them know my plans.
There was more work than I expected, but it was all important. I read through both books to make sure they still had relevance today. I didn’t change much about Enemy at the Gate because it’s set in the past but I made a few small changes to The Great Chocolate Cake Bake Off, to bring it up to date. I knew I would need new covers and back blurb and imprint information – in fact everything except the text, which is the only thing I have copyright for. I worked with the team I had used the year before for my novel The Telegram: editor Sue Copsey, designer Cheryl Smith, printer Your Books and distributor Nationwide.
So far I’ve just republished these two titles, but I’m aware of the process now and I’m thinking about how I might get more value for, and bring a new audience to, other work for which I retain copyright. My written and published works are my “back catalogue” and my heart. They represent my hard work but also feel like part of me. I hope people recognise the work that goes into writing a book and realise that writers need to be able to make a living here if we want our tamariki and rangatahi to have more New Zealand books and stories.”
Philippa Werry is an award-winning author of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays.