An Introduction to the Book Rights Industry
Understanding how writers and publishers make international deals.
Hello Scribblers,
I wanted to say thank you. Since we begun this Substack, I’ve really felt the love from you as our fantastic subscribers, and it has become an uplifting symbol to me of how Fly on the Wall Press, and the community of readers that makes us who we are as a company, has grown.
I’ll be looking to make our content more predictable so that you can look forward to particular types of newsletters every Friday! So here we go…
Monthly Content:
1st Friday of month: Author Interview or Author feature (insiders on writing or marketing)
2nd Friday of month: Publishing Insider (behind the scenes)
3rd Friday of month: Novel excerpt, poetry or short story
4th Friday of month: Newsletter round up – books and events
So today is a behind-the-scenes! We will be looking at how the publishing industry turns a manuscript into an international product by selling the rights of a book to other companies or publishers in other territories (or countries).
As an author, it can be difficult to view your book as a ‘product’ that provides multiple possibilities to create income from. The world of Rights selling is often only understood by agents and publishers. In this newsletter, I’ll give an introduction to how book rights are sold – and why.
Publishers’ income is mostly derived from the sales of books both physical and ebooks. However, the valuable stream of income that can be generated by licensing rights is often overlooked. It can make a significant difference to the author, and also to the publisher’s profitability on a particular title.
It's not easy to do, as it requires years of contact building, across multiple countries. Sometimes, a successful deal is the case of ‘right book at the right time’, based on market trends in particular countries, and sometimes a rights deal is the outcome of years of getting to know the tastes of an international publisher, or audiobook buyer ect!
So who can sell the rights of a book?
The author (if they have chosen to withhold certain rights i.e. Spanish language rights)
The writer’s agent (if granted by author)
The writer’s publisher (if granted by author)
A sub-agent for the publisher (some publishers outsource the rights selling process)
(P.s. Do I recommend that authors sell the rights of their own book? Probably not - unless you have contacts in a certain film company/with an editor in another country. However, the idea of this newsletter is to share the process with authors. The more understanding you have, the better placed you might be to help with, or pursue directly, a rights deal of your book.)
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