Totally lost, need help

cutecontinent said:

Let's say a publisher in the UK (let's call them Publisher Y) wants to buy world rights to a series.

In the contract, Publisher Y agrees to pay "10% royalty for book/ebook sales, and 5% royalty for export and international sales."

What does export/international sales mean, exactly?

Does that mean if someone in Germany buys a book from Publisher Y? (Presumably online or something?)

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Yep. It means if somebody in Germany buys a copy of the UK version.

What about say, a German publisher (Publisher Z) who buys German rights to the book and sells it in Germany? Is that dealt with separately (Publisher Z + different contract?) or treated as an export/international sale with Publisher Y?

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If you have sold WORLD rights to your UK publisher, that means that the UK publisher can sell the translation rights to other territories. For each of these territories/languages, there will be a new contract, between the foreign publisher and your UK publisher. (You will be privy to all this info, but the contract is with the PUBLISHER, not with you, because they are the rights holder in this case.) You will get the percentage of money from the deal that is indicated in your contract under "subsidiary rights: translation"

So let's say the publisher sells your book to Germany for 10,000 euro, and the split is 75/25, with 25 going to the UK publisher. (Translation splits may be anywhere from 60 to 80%, but I'd say 75% is pretty standard for a big publisher). If you haven't yet earned out your advance, your part of the split from this sale (7,500 euro) will go toward that. If you HAVE earned out your advance, you'll get the 7,500 euro directly, less your agent's commission.

Now, if you had only sold them WORLD ENGLISH, or UK/COMMONWEALTH ONLY, then in that case, YOUR AGENT would be the one peddling foreign rights. So in that case you'd get 100% of the $$ from the sale in your pocket, less your agent's commission. And don't forget - Germany is ONE territory - but there are dozens of others. SO if your book is a hot commodity in the foreign, you might get multiple foreign deals - they can end up being quite lucrative. (In fact, more than once I've made significantly more on foreign than I did on the original US deal!)

Does Publisher Y get some of the money with each German book Publisher Z sells? Or does the only money come from the sale of the German rights?

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Just like your UK contract - unless otherwise specified, most foreign contracts are for an advance against royalties. If Germany sells enough copies to earn out whatever advance they paid, there will be royalties. If the UK pub did the deal with the Germans, that money will continue to go through them and be split. If your agent did the deal with the Germans, you'll continue to get that money directly.

Hope that helps!