Agent Literar 5

Promoting and selling rights in Romanian titles

Lynette Owen, Copyright Director, Pearson Education Ltd, UK

Sinaia September 23rd-24th 2011

Why sell rights?

• To generate income for author and original publisher

• In some cases, to offset high author advance or substantial origination costs (e.g. for heavily illustrated books)

• To promote author reputation • To reach wider markets • To license into non-print formats • To deter piracy

Selling rights to foreign publishers (1)

• Who controls the rights? (a) for content by author/illustrator? (b) for any external copyright material quoted in the book (text, photos, illustrations etc)?

• What resources do you have to sell rights: people, time, money, rights database?

• Need to identify which books “travel” • Need to identify potential partners through market

research : prioritise your key markets

Selling rights to foreign publishers (2)

• Making the initial contact – by letter/e-mail? At book fairs?

• Preparing suitable sales material • What type of deal do you want - Translation ?

Coedition? • Will you offer as exclusive option, multiple

submission or auction? • Which books fairs are most useful? • What about sales trips?

Book fairs

• Setting up appointments in advance • Conducting the meeting • Using fairs for market research • Fair events – seminars, networking

Negotiating terms (1): what does the licensee want?

• Language: translation, bilingual? • What territory – world or only specific markets?

For example one global English language licence or separate UK and US licensees? Who will undertake the translation work?

• Format – hardback, paperback, e-book? • Any extra subsidiary rights e.g. serial rights, book

club rights?

Negotiating terms (2): the information you need

• Details of publishing house (if new contact) • Author, title of work, edition, ISBN • Language, territory and format required • First print quantity • Expected price (retail, recommended retail

or wholesale, less any VAT) • Publication schedule

Other issues

• Do they need duplicate production material? • Do they want you to print coedition copies

for them? – if so, quantity? • Do they want e-book rights as well as print

rights – if so, details of their plans, pricing, financial model

• Any special contractual requirements e.g. re arbitration, applicable law, currency etc

Quoting terms

• Arm’s length licence deal: usually an advance against escalating royalties – but on what price – retail or wholesale?

• Coedition – a price per copy, to include paper, printing, binding, packing, shipment to agreed destination – but should royalty element be included or paid separately? Timing of payment

• Who will reclear permission and pay for any third party material included in the book?

After the contract (1)

• Secure signature and any payment due on signature; tell author re deal

• Supply of agreed duplicate production material – on disc? Via FTP site?

• For coedition, monitor agreed stages – supply of translated text and shipping instructions, supply and approval of proofs, supply of advance copies, main shipment, payment at agreed stages

• Check any material required for advance approval e.g. cover, title and copyright pages, any additional material

After the contract (2)

• Monitor publication of licensed edition on time, receipt of finished copies, correct credit to author and original publisher, copyright acknowledgements

• Send copies to author • Monitor sales of licensed edition for life of licence

to decide whether to renew or cancel • Alert licensee to next printing (for coedition) or

revised edition (e.g. for textbooks)

Questions?

• lynette.owen@pearson.com