Is it possible for a manuscript to be too Australian? Our humour can often leave foreigners scratching their heads, and a lot of our slang is unintelligible to anyone who hasn’t grown up here. I realise that I am being incredibly optimistic to even think that I could be published in Australia, let alone have the conundrum of changing things for an overseas audience, but is it possible? Would an overseas agent take one look and reject on the strength that it is too niche-ie?
In short: yes. How many Australian novels do you know of that have gone on to worldwide acclaim? It's not because Australians can't write; it's because we used to be a colony (or, rather, a collection of colonies and - YES, SOUTH AUSTRALIANS, I KNOW - some settlements). You don't see flotillas of New Zealand or South African - or, really, Canadian - writers setting the world on fire. The Canadians have a better chance because they can peer over the border to the US but considering how many outstandingly great writers they have, they're underrepresented on the world stage. As are writers from non-English-speaking countries. And I suspect the issue is twofold.
First, we are all considered to be 'in translation' because we are not writing in the dominant dialects of English - namely, American English and, erm, English English - nor are we considered to be writing stories that will be deemed to be of interest to Americans or Britons, and they have the largest English-language book markets in the world.
Second, as former colonies we are still trying to shake off our own and others' sense of us being 'less than'. The Australian, NZ, Canadian, Indian and South African publishing industries still fight regular battles to get rights to sell in their territories, because the British publishing companies just take them as their entitlement. They simply do not consider that we may want them. Canada has the worst time of it - as members of the Commonwealth they regularly suffer from the UK presuming they can have the rights for themselves, but American publishers want them too, although the Americans can be a bit more relaxed about it. It's a wonder Canadian publishers get anything done (they do, though, and very well).
So for an Australian author writing an Australian story, there's a very small chance they'll get published overseas, and it will probably be in genre fiction where readers are more interested in the story fitting the genre than in its setting. Young adult fiction also travels, because teenagers are less finicky about place than adults. But it's hard and dispiriting trying to get published overseas. If you're really intent on being published in the US or UK, it does make sense to not set your story in Australia and also to research the market for similar books in those territories.
As a point of interest I can tell you that, in my experience, the Americans are less likely to care about an author being from outside the US than the British care about a writer not being in Britain. But they still care about whether or not the story is too Australian for their readers and some things have been changed for some books (but not all) for US publication.
Showing posts with label foreign rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign rights. Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Selling foreign rights - or, I love a sunburnt country
I have an agent and have sold AU/NZ rights to a well-known company who will be publishing my book (of fiction) in Australia this year. While my agent has said that it’s reasonable to try to sell the book overseas, as far as I can tell he hasn't tried to yet. I've asked why, but he won't give me a straight answer – which could well be because he doesn't actually think it is possible but would prefer not to say. So, how bad would it be for me to try and solicit some foreign interest in the ms myself (I am considering sending it to a couple of overseas publishers)? If anyone was interested, I’d be delighted for my agent to handle the contract. Or is this just silly and/or poor form? Is there some protocol I don't understand about the way these things work, a reason 'we' are treading water (e.g. perhaps it's customary to wait until after Australian publication before exploring overseas interest)?
Overseas publishers often want to wait until there are Australian sales figures before they consider books for publication in their own territories. It's usually a matter of which publisher/agent and how they usually work.
Have you asked your agent about his foreign rights contacts? Does he usually sell foreign rights? If so, does he use co-agents or subagents? These are all valid questions to ask. As far as you sending the ms yourself to overseas publishers - good luck. Unless you have good contacts in the publishing houses you're planning to contact, without an agent (especially in the US and UK) you will go on the slush pile with everyone else. But if you want to try, you must tell your agent what you're doing - it's bad form to submit overseas at the same time as your agent may be trying to do the same thing.
And I'm going to take this opportunity to make a point: most Australian writers seem to think that Australia is a semi-worthless market, that they haven't 'made it' unless they're published overseas. I suspect this has to do with some sort of belief that overseas publication - especially in the US - means big bucks. Well, it doesn't. An advance for a first novel in the US is not much higher than it is here. Total sales figures for literary fiction in the UK - with a much bigger population - are usually the same as here: that's right, 5000 copies sold here for a literary novel, 5000 copies sold in the UK. Fiction is tough. How many Australian novelists have hit the jackpot overseas? How many big Australian novelists sell successfully into other territories? Bryce Courtenay has no overseas profile. Nor does Di Morrissey. They're two of our currently most successful novelists.
So while it's fine to want overseas publication, don't hang your hopes on it, don't despair if you don't get it, and above all don't disparage or downgrade the territory that you are being published in. Australians love books. We read a lot; we buy a lot of books. You have a better shot at being a success if you put lots of energy into your Australian publication and let the foreign rights sales flow from that. A big hit here is usually the best way to get someone's attention overseas, and even then it may not work. It breaks my heart every time an author gets an Australian publishing deal and their next question is, 'What about the UK?' It makes me want to check that Robert Menzies isn't still running the country and that ABC newsreaders aren't using cut-glass English accents. It's 2010. Surely we're not still cultural-cringing?
Overseas publishers often want to wait until there are Australian sales figures before they consider books for publication in their own territories. It's usually a matter of which publisher/agent and how they usually work.
Have you asked your agent about his foreign rights contacts? Does he usually sell foreign rights? If so, does he use co-agents or subagents? These are all valid questions to ask. As far as you sending the ms yourself to overseas publishers - good luck. Unless you have good contacts in the publishing houses you're planning to contact, without an agent (especially in the US and UK) you will go on the slush pile with everyone else. But if you want to try, you must tell your agent what you're doing - it's bad form to submit overseas at the same time as your agent may be trying to do the same thing.
And I'm going to take this opportunity to make a point: most Australian writers seem to think that Australia is a semi-worthless market, that they haven't 'made it' unless they're published overseas. I suspect this has to do with some sort of belief that overseas publication - especially in the US - means big bucks. Well, it doesn't. An advance for a first novel in the US is not much higher than it is here. Total sales figures for literary fiction in the UK - with a much bigger population - are usually the same as here: that's right, 5000 copies sold here for a literary novel, 5000 copies sold in the UK. Fiction is tough. How many Australian novelists have hit the jackpot overseas? How many big Australian novelists sell successfully into other territories? Bryce Courtenay has no overseas profile. Nor does Di Morrissey. They're two of our currently most successful novelists.
So while it's fine to want overseas publication, don't hang your hopes on it, don't despair if you don't get it, and above all don't disparage or downgrade the territory that you are being published in. Australians love books. We read a lot; we buy a lot of books. You have a better shot at being a success if you put lots of energy into your Australian publication and let the foreign rights sales flow from that. A big hit here is usually the best way to get someone's attention overseas, and even then it may not work. It breaks my heart every time an author gets an Australian publishing deal and their next question is, 'What about the UK?' It makes me want to check that Robert Menzies isn't still running the country and that ABC newsreaders aren't using cut-glass English accents. It's 2010. Surely we're not still cultural-cringing?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Even if you're published, it can still feel like the first time
I'm a fairly newish (in terms of publication) Australian writer, with one non-fiction book and one novel to my credit, both published by a large and well respected Australian publisher - the novel has also been sold to a major US publisher. I also have a wonderful and very effective agent from one of the biggest agencies. What I'm interested to know, having worked so damn long and hard to get to this stage, is what do I now need to do to *keep* my wonderful agent and publisher? Write good books that sell well, sure - but what sort of actual sales figures are publishers (and agents) looking at in this regard - 5000 copies? 10,000? (We're talking commercial/popular fiction.) Are sales figures all they're concerned with? Will the fact my novel sold to a big o/s publisher work in my favour at all? (My Aus publisher had nothing to do with this sale, which came about when my Aus agent got me a US agent who subsequently made the sale. My Aus publisher only bought Aus/NZ rights.)
If that question sounds a little paranoid, it is. I'm going a bit nutty waiting to hear what my publisher thinks of my second novel, and wondering how getting a foot in the door publishing-wise translates into getting and keeping the rest of me there too.
Well, Paranoid Pup, let's try to put your mind at ease.
1. What sort of actual sales figures are publishers (and agents) looking at in this regard - 5000 copies? 10,000? (We're talking commercial/popular fiction.)
For your first novel the sales figures they want are the ones that earn out your advance. That's the first thing to keep in mind. If you took a $5000 advance and earned $10 000 worth of royalties, everyone's happy, regardless of how many copies that means. But if you're talking about building a career, then over the course of novels 2, 3 and 4, yes, for commercial fiction we're talking about 10 000 copies. It's your publisher's job to sell that many copies; it's your job to give them a novel that can sell that many copies. If you can do anything else to help sell books - blogging, being friendly to booksellers, doing a sterling job at public appearances - that's great. And that will help your sales grow. But only take as much responsibility as is yours. It's your agent's job to make sure you're with a publisher who can reasonably sell that many copies.
2. Are sales figures all they're concerned with?
In a large multinational, generally, yes. Some publishing companies are a bit easier on first novels - if you have a commissioning editor or publisher who is willing to champion you, there can be a grace period for novels one and two, but the party's over after that. They're businesses. They need to make money or they disappear. And don't forget that you're a business too.
3. Will the fact my novel sold to a big o/s publisher work in my favour at all?
It will work in your favour if the novel sells well once it's published overseas. The sale to a US publisher, in and of itself, won't usually make a difference.
All of that aside, take some time to pat yourself on the back. Two published books, a novel that's sold into a foreign territory - this is the stuff of dreams for most writers. You obviously have something that people like. Trust that it's still there when you write your next novel, and don't overthink it. Overthinking is bad, especially if you try to work out what it was that worked so well the first time ... Just trust yourself - trust in a higher power if you prefer - but don't spend much more time being paranoid.
One last note: if your publisher has spent too long getting back to you about novel number two, talk to your agent about a strategy for getting it published elsewhere. There's a contractual limit on that first look at a new project - publishers need to honour it.
If that question sounds a little paranoid, it is. I'm going a bit nutty waiting to hear what my publisher thinks of my second novel, and wondering how getting a foot in the door publishing-wise translates into getting and keeping the rest of me there too.
Well, Paranoid Pup, let's try to put your mind at ease.
1. What sort of actual sales figures are publishers (and agents) looking at in this regard - 5000 copies? 10,000? (We're talking commercial/popular fiction.)
For your first novel the sales figures they want are the ones that earn out your advance. That's the first thing to keep in mind. If you took a $5000 advance and earned $10 000 worth of royalties, everyone's happy, regardless of how many copies that means. But if you're talking about building a career, then over the course of novels 2, 3 and 4, yes, for commercial fiction we're talking about 10 000 copies. It's your publisher's job to sell that many copies; it's your job to give them a novel that can sell that many copies. If you can do anything else to help sell books - blogging, being friendly to booksellers, doing a sterling job at public appearances - that's great. And that will help your sales grow. But only take as much responsibility as is yours. It's your agent's job to make sure you're with a publisher who can reasonably sell that many copies.
2. Are sales figures all they're concerned with?
In a large multinational, generally, yes. Some publishing companies are a bit easier on first novels - if you have a commissioning editor or publisher who is willing to champion you, there can be a grace period for novels one and two, but the party's over after that. They're businesses. They need to make money or they disappear. And don't forget that you're a business too.
3. Will the fact my novel sold to a big o/s publisher work in my favour at all?
It will work in your favour if the novel sells well once it's published overseas. The sale to a US publisher, in and of itself, won't usually make a difference.
All of that aside, take some time to pat yourself on the back. Two published books, a novel that's sold into a foreign territory - this is the stuff of dreams for most writers. You obviously have something that people like. Trust that it's still there when you write your next novel, and don't overthink it. Overthinking is bad, especially if you try to work out what it was that worked so well the first time ... Just trust yourself - trust in a higher power if you prefer - but don't spend much more time being paranoid.
One last note: if your publisher has spent too long getting back to you about novel number two, talk to your agent about a strategy for getting it published elsewhere. There's a contractual limit on that first look at a new project - publishers need to honour it.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Foreign etiquette
I've discovered that once I've had a story published in an Australian magazine I can try to sell it to overseas publishers. I know I need to specify what rights I'm selling (eg. First British serial rights), but is it necessary to mention it has been published here in Australia?
First you need to check which rights you've sold in Australia - if you gave them world rights, then you have nothing to sell. I'm presuming you've done that, so if you're submitting overseas you should mention that it's been published in Australia, because it's a good thing - someone else thought the story worthy of publication. But, given that we're a former colony partly populated by former Britons - a fact they conveniently forget, damn overlords, just because the aforementioned former Britons were criminals - don't expect anyone in the UK to actually care. I could spend two hours ranting about British publishers and their cavalier behaviour in respect of Australian rights, but I'm already en couleur and I should really calm down before trying to eat my lunch.
First you need to check which rights you've sold in Australia - if you gave them world rights, then you have nothing to sell. I'm presuming you've done that, so if you're submitting overseas you should mention that it's been published in Australia, because it's a good thing - someone else thought the story worthy of publication. But, given that we're a former colony partly populated by former Britons - a fact they conveniently forget, damn overlords, just because the aforementioned former Britons were criminals - don't expect anyone in the UK to actually care. I could spend two hours ranting about British publishers and their cavalier behaviour in respect of Australian rights, but I'm already en couleur and I should really calm down before trying to eat my lunch.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Competitions and world rights
A writing competition (for novels) that I'm thinking of entering offers a cash prize plus publication. I notice in the small print however that the publishers reserve all world-wide publishing rights to the winning manuscript and all shortlisted manuscripts. Is this good or bad? Would the winner still get royalties on such things as foreign, movie or electronic rights?
There's a growing number of competitions in our island's publishing industry, so your question is timely and important.
It is customary for publishers to take worldwide rights for competition winners - okay, yeah, they have the writers over a barrel, so what can you do? But I have real problems with shortlisted writers (a) being told they can't submit elsewhere until the publishing company has decided whether they want to publish the novel or not and (b) being made to give up these rights while their status is in limbo, and even if it's not.
Foreign rights is a specialised area of the industry. I don't always advise my authors to hold onto their foreign rights so I can do something with them - sometimes the publisher will have a much better chance of placing the book overseas, and I'll tell the author that. It all depends on who we know and who publishes what, and it's important to do what's best for the book. So I'm not saying that publishers who take world rights in these competitions are inherently bad, because it may be good for the author if the publisher handles those rights. For example, if the author doesn't have an agent who can manage those rights for them, how are they going to exploit them otherwise? And for the winning manuscript, I can see why the publisher wants them: they've invested time in the competition, they've chosen a winner and now they're going to invest time and money in them. Thus, they want to have the opportunity to make back some of that money by selling foreign rights.
However, for the shortlisted writers this is not the case. The competition has served to bring their manuscripts to the publisher's attention, nothing more. They have not won; they will not automatically get an advance. The publisher is using the competition to find new talent, and that's fair enough, but the shortlisted writers should not then be subject to the same conditions as the winning manuscript. They should also be free to submit elsewhere. The Vogel Award, for example, is not an award for One Really Good Novel and Four Close Calls. It's an award for one novel alone. Once the winner is announced, the others should either be set free immediately or given a (short) time frame within which the publisher has exclusivity.
As for the royalties you mention, the author gets those - well, any money earned on sales of foreign rights or movie rights etc go against the advance, so you see royalties if you've earned out your advance. Any publishing contract that tells you that you're not entitled to a royalty on subsidiary rights (translation, movie and so on) is a contract you shouldn't sign.
There's a growing number of competitions in our island's publishing industry, so your question is timely and important.
It is customary for publishers to take worldwide rights for competition winners - okay, yeah, they have the writers over a barrel, so what can you do? But I have real problems with shortlisted writers (a) being told they can't submit elsewhere until the publishing company has decided whether they want to publish the novel or not and (b) being made to give up these rights while their status is in limbo, and even if it's not.
Foreign rights is a specialised area of the industry. I don't always advise my authors to hold onto their foreign rights so I can do something with them - sometimes the publisher will have a much better chance of placing the book overseas, and I'll tell the author that. It all depends on who we know and who publishes what, and it's important to do what's best for the book. So I'm not saying that publishers who take world rights in these competitions are inherently bad, because it may be good for the author if the publisher handles those rights. For example, if the author doesn't have an agent who can manage those rights for them, how are they going to exploit them otherwise? And for the winning manuscript, I can see why the publisher wants them: they've invested time in the competition, they've chosen a winner and now they're going to invest time and money in them. Thus, they want to have the opportunity to make back some of that money by selling foreign rights.
However, for the shortlisted writers this is not the case. The competition has served to bring their manuscripts to the publisher's attention, nothing more. They have not won; they will not automatically get an advance. The publisher is using the competition to find new talent, and that's fair enough, but the shortlisted writers should not then be subject to the same conditions as the winning manuscript. They should also be free to submit elsewhere. The Vogel Award, for example, is not an award for One Really Good Novel and Four Close Calls. It's an award for one novel alone. Once the winner is announced, the others should either be set free immediately or given a (short) time frame within which the publisher has exclusivity.
As for the royalties you mention, the author gets those - well, any money earned on sales of foreign rights or movie rights etc go against the advance, so you see royalties if you've earned out your advance. Any publishing contract that tells you that you're not entitled to a royalty on subsidiary rights (translation, movie and so on) is a contract you shouldn't sign.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
When you don't need an agent
I have my first novel coming out next year with a well-regarded Australian independent publisher. The publisher is keen to sell the book overseas - I sold them world rights - and judging from their list they have good relationships with publishers in the UK and US. Do I even need to think about talking to agents, or should I just leave it in the publisher's hands?
Not only do you not need to talk to an agent, but there's nothing for them to do - all the rights are with the publisher, so the agent can't help you decide what to do with them or help you place them. The publisher should let you know if they receive offers from overseas, but as they hold the world rights they don't technically need your approval to accept or reject such offers - so an agent can't even help you with that bit. No, this agent horse has bolted.
Not only do you not need to talk to an agent, but there's nothing for them to do - all the rights are with the publisher, so the agent can't help you decide what to do with them or help you place them. The publisher should let you know if they receive offers from overseas, but as they hold the world rights they don't technically need your approval to accept or reject such offers - so an agent can't even help you with that bit. No, this agent horse has bolted.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
If my genre has limited local appeal, should I go overseas?
I write fanatasy humour because, as we all know, this is a licence to print money, particularly for Australian authors. Given the limited market for this genre, should I consider chasing local and international agents at the same time?
You should always query as many agents as you want to. Check out agents' submission guidelines to see whether they have a policy about simultaneous submissions, but generally speaking you should query your little heart out. It's a numbers game - the more people you submit to, the more responses you will get, and the faster you'll work out whether your novel is any good or not. Agents in the UK and US would not be surprised to receive a submission from an Australian. Good luck!
You should always query as many agents as you want to. Check out agents' submission guidelines to see whether they have a policy about simultaneous submissions, but generally speaking you should query your little heart out. It's a numbers game - the more people you submit to, the more responses you will get, and the faster you'll work out whether your novel is any good or not. Agents in the UK and US would not be surprised to receive a submission from an Australian. Good luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)