Posts Tagged ‘Foreign Rights’

Contracts and Rights in More Than 140 Characters

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

While I was busy at work and then grocery shopping a discussion arose regarding my historical romances and what’s being published where.

Basically, the more than 140 character version is that my publisher only bought North American rights to my historicals. My agent tried to get them to go for World rights but they weren’t interested. I knew I had the foreign rights. In fact, there was a nice handful of foreign sales by my agent

It was only after I wondered out loud to my agent why Not Wicked Enough was on sale at Amazon.co.uk only in paper and not in digital that I learned that Berkley had North American rights only: essentially, the US and Canada.  That book should not have been on sale in the UK at all. And, as it turns out when it occurred to me that I ought to check, the same was true for Scandal and Indiscreet.

So, hoo-yah! Kind of late. I self-published Scandal, Indiscreet and Not Wicked Enough in all the territories where I have rights, including the UK. I will do the same for Not Proper Enough when it releases this September.

I’m still waiting for an accounting of what I am owed for books sold in countries where my publisher did not have rights.

The odd thing is that originally, it was very disappointing that we were unable to get my publisher to buy World Rights. They just weren’t interested. Things are changing fast in the publishing business. Speaking only for myself, I’m glad to have those other rights. And, in fact, I was quite disappointed when my publisher agreed to reprint Indiscreet rather than revert the rights to me. Scandal was/is still in print.

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Other Writing News

Sunday, January 8th, 2012

Newsiness

I just sent out a newsletter with all the news that I kept saving up because I would soon have MORE news. If you want to be on my newsletter list, sign up! It’s super fun and I only send one out when I have news (I had a lot) or when I have a release (there’s one coming up in February). If you want the most recent newsletter, with all its newsy-news, let me know and I’ll send it to you. If you do, I will not sign you up for future newsletters. For that, you’ll have to go through the sign-up process.

Foreign Sales

Scandal and Indiscreet have sold to France, so if you read French you’re in luck.

Scandal has sold into Germany so German readers are in luck.

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Foreign Relations

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Today I found out that My Wicked Enemy and My Forbidden Desire sold to Germany. Yay! I’ve been kind of moping (in my secret heart) that I’ve never, to my knowledge, sold German translation rights. Germany is a huge Romance market so I’m thrilled.

Economics

It’s interesting to me that the money, which made my eyes open when I saw the figure, is paid out between 2011 and 2014. Yes, the amount is more than I’ve gotten for foreign rights to date, but with the payout so long, it’s less than it seems, since inflation will decrease the present-day value of the advance.

What I’m finding with foreign rights, though, now that I’m actually selling them (either through my agent or my publisher, depending on the contract terms) is that these rights end up making me more money — over the long term, than the initial sale. Not all at once, but, as I’ve heard other authors say, in dribs and drabs. Huh. This is all very new to me, as to my knowledge my first two books were never translated and for the others that were, I was, alas, never paid for those translated editions.

Another Interesting Thing

According to the contract terms I saw, Book 2, My Forbidden Desire, will be translated and published first, then My Wicked Enemy. Not that it matters. I just thought that was interesting.

So hey!

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