Working with a Foreign Press

D.L. Shepherd

D.L. Shepherd

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Hi. I did several different searches, but I don't seem to be finding what I'm looking for. I'm wondering what it is like to work with an overseas small publisher without an agent to help negotiate the waters. For example, a US author working with a UK press.

Are there any specific issues you should be concerned about? Contract differences? Collecting payments?

I'd love to hear experiences from authors in this situation.

Thanks for your time!
 
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The main things to be concerned about is whether the press is reputable or not, and whether or not they have a good record of sales and are likely to sell lots of copies of your book.

Publishing contracts are pretty similar wherever you are, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Get it checked out by someone who knows publishing contracts. IP lawyers are sometimes used but all they usually know are whether or not the contract is legally valid, not whether it's favourable to you, or ripping you off. In the UK the SoA is a good resource here.

Payment: it can be tricky or it can be seamless. Some small publishers pay by Paypal which means you have to pay a small percentage of all your payments as Paypal fees. But it's so easy to pay electronically now, from one bank account to another, that this should not be an issue to you.
 
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As OH said, contracts are contracts. Payment can be by cheque, bank tx, Paypal, all of which are dead easy. (At least, that has been my experience working with US publishers while living in Aotearoa-New Zealand.) The only 'problem' is that if you want to buy a crate of your own books at the pre-agreed discount to give away as local prizes or whatever, the cost of shipping the books overseas from them to you can be astronomical.
 
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