Foreign Rights & Translations for Your Book

Foreign Rights, as well as translations into other languages, can be a great way to leverage the value of your manuscript – but do not expect large book sales numbers right away. 

Revenue in royalties will be an advance and approximately 6 - 10% royalty of the retail price, minus a percentage for the agent. It's also a long-term project as it takes around 18 months until the book is translated and finally available online and in bookstores.
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Foreign rights belong to your book's subsidiary rights.  Like other sub-rights, such as audio, movies, book clubs, paperback reprints, electronic rights, foreign rights can be sold and separated from your book’s primary rights - which you totally own anyway as an independent author-publisher.

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Before you sign the contract: 
Always first contact your national writers’ association for further information and get legal advice from a lawyer who is specialized in copyright. This could save you several thousand dollars - if not more.

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Let's Start With the Revenue You Get from Your Book’s Retail Price:Just the facts about earning possibilities for your book.

If you sell your book on your own website ca. 90 - 95%

Selling through Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or other online retailers: up to 70%

Selling your manuscripts to a trade publisher, earns a (small) advance and ca. 8 - 10% royalties – but this will be subtracted from the advance and only if you “earn out” your advance, which means the book is really selling well, you receive royalties.
For most authors, the advance is all they really earn.

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If You Want to Let Your Book Translate in World LanguagesYou can certainly just translate your book and sell it through online retailers worldwide. Most spoken languages besides English (albeit not necessarily e-book readers) are Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, German, Russian, Russian, Portuguese, Bengali, Japanese according to Wikipedia.
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Start With Maximizing Your Foreign Presence - For FREETo maximize your presence in overseas Amazon Kindle stores, just set up an Author Central account in each of those country-specific sites where your book is available.

As Amazon divided the world in single countries, announce your Countdown Deals, new book launches or Free Kindle KDP Days in several languages: Order at http://www.Fiverr.com a short translation of 10 tweets in Spanish, French, German etc. for $5 / 200 words. The countries with the most usage of eReaders, according to a survey of Bookboon are USA, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark etc.
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A good idea would also be to join ALLI   
New rights services are growing up online to help authors meet rights buyers directly without having to travel to a book fair and using technology to extend reach. ALLi now has an arrangement with one of these, Pubmatch. Members have access to Putmatch's premium service through ALLI at a deeply discounted rate.  Pubmatch will facilitate communication, data warehousing and the simplification of rights marketing for publishers, agents, authors, and others, making it the go-to place for the international publishing community to find new titles and new talent.
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International Book Fairs:
Do not just turn up at an international book fair, hoping to sell your book.  Meetings are arranged well in advance (4-6 months!) with acquisitions editors at international publishing houses. 
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Top Publisher for French Foreign Rights
If you want to talk about foreign rights with a French publisher one of the biggest in the world, Hachette who is also partnering with Phoenix Publishing & Media Group in China, holds a 25% share of Atticus in Russia.
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Top Publisher for Spanish Foreign Rights - Good for book sales in the USA too!

Planeta leads the world's Spanish-language publishing markets in Spain and Latin America.  The company has further strongholds in Portugal and France, where it owns Editis, the country’s second-largest group.  Grupo Planeta is present in 25 countries, with more than 100 imprints and a catalog of 15,000 titles.
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Major agencies, specialized in Foreign Rights:

http://knightagency.net/

http://nelsonagency.com/foreign-rights/

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Choose your foreign rights agent carefully!Most agents charge 20% (or sometimes even 25%) on foreign sales. This 20% rate is justified because normally two agents are involved (the 2nd one is in the foreign country), and they end up splitting the commission.  If you are not represented already, why not try to find agents or even publishers yourself in other countries, especially if you speak more than one language?
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There are things to watch when negotiating foreign rights deals – hopefully, an agent will keep an eye on these, but it’s worth knowing about it:

The term of the deal:
Five years is most common, anything longer then you should be expecting a premium from the publisher.
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Country / Territory for the contract:
You might sign away Portuguese language rights without realizing that it will include publication in Brazil and Mozambique, Angola, Macau, Cape Verde etc.  Also, giving worldwide Spanish language rights could cause friction with any United States publishing deal, as there is a large Spanish reading audience in the US.
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Tax situation in your and the potential publishers country: While there are now many treaties which allow for the uninhibited flow of money between countries, you could lose some of your advances to a foreign government’s tax.
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Before Signing a Contract with an Agent or a Publisher 
How can an author tell if the company is good with foreign rights?  Ask about their previous sales!  Contact authors who work with that publisher or agent and ask them about their experience.  It’s also possible to find out the name of foreign publishers and go to their websites and see what books they have recently published.
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Find out what authors the agency represents overseas, then ask those authors about their own experiences.

Again, foreign rights are only a portion of an author’s income, so that’s something to bear in mind.

Check your agreement with a translations rights agent carefully. Never, ever! give world rights away as standard, and you should also insist on a large upfront payment.
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Read more:

How to Sell Foreign Rights
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/how-to-sell-foreign-book-rights/

In Gwen Ellery’s article are tips from foreign agents about the cultural difference - something very important!
http://www.gwenellery.com/your-books-foreign-rights/

John Penberthy, a successful writer, who searched the internet, found contact addresses of agents in other countries and contacted them directly.
http://axiomawards.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/selling-foreign-rights-around-the-world/

Morris Rosenthal gives also great, detailed tips in his article about book contracts.
http://www.fonerbooks.com/contract.htm

Importance of Foreign Rights
http://www.columbinecommunications.com/articles/the-importance-of-foreign-rights/

How You Can Sell your Rights or Split Your Book into Single Articles:
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/why-you-should-split-your-book-apart/

John Kremer sells helpful lists and reports for authors and an e-book with an extensive list of foreign rights agents http://www.bookmarket.com/foreign.htm

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German Publishers Who Are Buying Foreign Rights:

Verlagsgruppe Droemer Knaur GmbH & Co. KGHoltzbrinck VerlagsgruppeHilblestraße 54 
D-80636 Münchenhttp://www.droemer-knaur.de/foreign-rights
service@holtzbrinckverlage.de

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Bertelsmann Verlag
Verlagsgruppe Random House
Rights Department/Lizenzabteilung 

Neumarkter Str. 28 
 D-81673 München
http://www.randomhouse.de/foreignright/foreignrightindex.jsp


lizenzen@randomhouse.de




Verlag Klaus Wagenbach Emser Straße 40/41 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf http://www.wagenbach.de Vertrieb Nina Wagenbach n.wagenbach@wagenbach.de

Langen Müller Verlag + Herbig VerlagPfizerstr. 5-7  70184 Stuttgarthttps://www.herbig.net

Belletristik, Biografien, Zeitgeschichte, Ratgeber, Populäres
Sachbuch, Musik, Theater, Bildbände, Reiseliteratur, KochbuchForeign Rights - Elke Kienzle, Foreign Rights Managere.kienzle(at)kosmos.de 

Verlag Antje KunstmannMunich, Germanyhttps://www.kunstmann.de/
Verlag 
Independent publishing house founded in 1976 publishing international fiction and non-fiction as well as audio-books, illustrated and gift-books.

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All About Literary Agents

Why do authors use the service of a publishing agent?  Except for those publishing houses which deal exclusively with agents, authors don't really need an agent to submit their work for publication consideration.  In Canada, just to name one country, very few book deals are done by agents, only under five percent.  An author can do everything an agent does, though an agent might have better knowledge of the market and what the publishing houses are actually buying.

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For those writers who might think they need an agent, have a look at the do's and don'ts of both sides:

• Reputable agents will not charge you a fee up front to represent your book. They earn their living by selling your book to a publisher and gaining a commission. That commission is a percentage of the proceeds your book earns. For one thing, this gives the agent an incentive to actually market your book around to various publishers likely to buy it for publication. This is another reason why many agents pick submissions carefully. They know what publishers are looking for and they will not accept anything which isn't ready for submission or close enough that a few days of editing will make the difference.

• Most agents these days charge 15% commission on domestic sales (USA & Canada). Never under any circumstances should you pay expenses or any fees up front: the agent only receives money by deducting his or her 15% commission from your eventual earnings.  An agent telling new writers that she/he was charging 15% commission plus expenses — that's a rip-off; don't agree to it. The Association of Authors Representatives (professional organization of literary agents) also forbids the charging of "reading fees." If an agent asks you to pay a fee for his or her "evaluation" of your manuscript, refuse! 

• Agents have differing commission rates though you will not have the option of shopping around as much as you might like. Most important, the agent has to be willing to represent your work.  Once an agent offers representation, the author better takes the offer. After having established a great reputation as a novelist, one can shop around for a better deal - if it is to be found.

• If a manuscript is truly marketable in the agent's opinion but needs editing, most agents will tell so but not recommend a particular editing service.  A good agent might name some without recommending any editing service in particular.  Some agents have even been known to go above and beyond the call of duty in assisting with the editing themselves when they feel they have a sure winner to represent.

• But authors should have ensured that a manuscript was edited prior to submitting it to any agent or publisher. Remember that the editors of a publishing house are not there to edit out any mistakes, they are the decision-making managers.

• The agent is also the money manager besides being the one responsible for getting the best deal for the author with any publishing house. When the manuscript sells to a publisher, the agent is the one who receives the money. The agent subtracts the appropriate commission and pays the remainder to the author.

• An inquiry letter is not a submission. Use an inquiry letter when contacting publishers who deal by invitation only.  If your inquiry letter gains the publisher's interest, the publisher will then request to see the manuscript.
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Agents are often reluctant to take on any new writers, especially first-time authors, no matter how well the writer writes.  However, if you feel you must have an agent, then you must sell both your manuscript and yourself / your platform to the agent.  A good query letter is the key to pitch your book.

• Do not send manuscripts to agents unless the agent's guidelines expressly state that those are acceptable within initial correspondence.
• Email messages should be kept to a length of one or two pages unless explicitly invited to send a manuscript or sample chapters.

• Go to the agent’s sites and follow their submission guidelines to the letter.
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Find Addresses of Agents in these Books:

• 2015 Writer’s Market  the best Resource for Authors
• Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market
• Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market
• Poet’s Market, Writer’s Market
• Publish Your Non-fiction Book
• Guide to Literary Agents
• Writer’s Digest
• Editors, Literary Agents
• The Canadian Writer’s Market
• The Canadian Writer’s Guide for Canadian agents
• Literary Marketplace
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Since the USA is the largest market with the most potential for sales you should seriously consider getting an agent there, before you commit to anything in Canada or the UK.  However Canadian Publishers don't require always agents, while American Publishers are almost always insisting on it.  Important for success are not only perfect writing skills and an enticing story, but also to have more than just one book, and to show a great Social Media author platform with thousands of potential readers.  “The smartest thing you can do today for your career (other than write)”. This is the motto of an amazing blog that I discovered:  http://queryshark.blogspot.ca

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Hyper Smash

Pingate

Foreign Book Rights: Multiply the Sales of Your Manuscript

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Want to Sell More of Your Books?
Foreign Rights as well as translations into other languages can be a great way to leverage the value of your manuscript – but don’t expect big numbers right away. Revenue will be an advance and approximately 6 - 10% royalty of the retail price, minus percentage for the agent. It's also a long-term project as it takes around 18 months until the book is translated and finally available online and in bookstores abroad.
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Contact Foreign Publishers via Book Fairs or an Agent
Before signing a contract with an agent or a publisher, how can an author tell if the company is good with foreign rights? Ask about their previous sales!  Contact authors who work with that publisher or agent and ask them about their experience. It’s also possible to find out the name of foreign publishers and go to their web sites and see what books they have recently published.
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Writer Beware - Carefully Check Out the Agency!
Find out what authors the agency represents overseas, then ask those authors about their own experiences. Again, foreign rights are only a portion of an author’s income, so that’s something to bear in mind. Check your agreement with a translations rights agent carefully.  Never, ever! give world rights away as standard, and you should also insist in a large upfront payment instead of higher royalty.  The advance is what you get now, while royalties may trigger in over future years, and if something goes wrong with the publisher, you have at least the advance.
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A foreign rights deal is an absolutely fantastic way to increase revenue while taking your content “Global”. 
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More Resources for Foreign Rights:
http://knightagency.net/
http://nelsonagency.com/foreign-rights/

How You Can Sell your Rights or Split Your Book into Single Articles: http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/why-you-should-split-your-book-apart/

In Gwen Ellery’s article are tips from foreign agents about the cultural difference – something very important!  http://www.gwenellery.com/your-books-foreign-rights/

John Penberthy, a successful writer, who searched the internet, found contact addresses of agents in other countries and contacted them directly.  http://axiomawards.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/selling-foreign-rights-around-the-world/

Morris Rosenthal gives also great, detailed tips in his article about book contracts. http://www.fonerbooks.com/contract.htm