Foreign Rights Question: Who Ends up Publishing/Printing your Book?

Mr. Mask said:

When you sell foreign rights to a given country, who usually ends up as the print-publisher? Would it be a local publisher of that country, which people are familiar with (Bungeishunju of Japan to name an ambitious example)? Or is it more likely to be that country's branch of your native publisher?

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The publisher is whoever you license the rights to.

Whether they publish it in print or in digital format depends on the rights you license to them.

It might be a local publisher, or it might be an overseas wing of your original publisher, but again, this all depends on who you agree to license those rights to.

Sometimes a publisher will offer a big advance and a good deal but will ask for world rights in return: they will then license the rights they can't exploit to other territories, and you'll probably get 50% of the resulting royalties (that's not a 50% royalty, by the way--it's half of the payments and royalties the publisher gets from the deal).

Sometimes, a publisher will only get rights to publish the book in their home territory, in which case your agent should try to license rights to publishers in other territories. If they are successful in their endeavours (and if they're good agents, they should be), then you'll get the full amount of the deal minus your agent's commission, which should be 20-25%.

I can imagine smaller publishers not having branches in some countries, and relying on some local publishers, certainly.

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You should only grant world rights to smaller publishers if they have a better ability than you do to exploit those rights. If you're better placed to secure foreign sales, then keep hold of them.

Part of what I'm wondering, is what commonly stands as a better chance for a book being sold in another country. On one hand, I can imagine a prejudice against foreign publishers, but on the other hand I can imagine a positive bias toward major international publishers.

Has anyone else been thinking about or researching this?

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I'm not sure what you mean by these last paras. Could you please explain?

The publisher that licenses the rights will be the publisher that publishes the book.

If you sell your book to a multinational publisher, exactly what rights in what countries they want will be spelled out in painful detail in the contract.

If you don't get bought by a multinational, it's up to you, or your agent, (or your publisher, depending on your contract) to license the foreign rights to assorted foreign publishers.

In either case your contract will be very, very clear as to exactly which rights in which territories you're selling.

It's usually a good idea to only license the rights to a publisher that they have a proven track record of being able to exploit. So, if you have a publisher that has only ever sold books in the US, you wouldn't grant them North American rights, because they have no history of selling/ability to sell in Canada or Mexico.

Thanks for the clarification.

Mr. Mask said:

I figure that readers of the country might trust their local publishers, rather than foreign ones. Unless of course, the foreign publisher is one of the major publishing houses of the world.

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Have you ever bought a book because you trust the publisher? Or do you buy books because they grab your attention?

What I'm wondering about, is what makes for a more successful book in foreign countries. Getting your agent to licence your book with a local publisher, or the foreign wing of your current publisher.

I know this will vary by country, but I wonder if there's a rule of thumb.

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If the book is translated sensitively, and well-published in its new territory, it's likely to sell well.

If it's translated badly and published badly, it's not going to do well at all.

Neither of these two extremes have anything to do with whether a book is published by an arm of a conglomerate or a locally-based publisher.

Mr. Mask said:

I buy books because the reviews and premise are good enough to get my interest. Thought some people would check for books with their favourite publishers.

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Some imprints do have a certain amount of brand loyalty, but they're usually those with a strong genre identity, such as Harlequin Mills &Boon. Otherwise, readers will usually buy books from authors they like, and ignore who publishes them.

Is there a way to check publishers' track records within each country? Or do you just need to rely on a good agent to know what's best in that regard?

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If you have a good agent (and why would you have a bad one?), they'll know not just which are the good publishers to work with, but the best editors within those publishers, and what they're all looking for. That doesn't mean that you can pay no attention to the business of publishing and leave everything to your agent: but it does mean that you'll have help and guidance to make the best decisions for your work.

Thank you for your advice. You answered my curiosity and concerns very nicely. Thank you for that.

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You're welcome!