Quote:
Originally Posted by da_jane
It often has to do with author rights. If the rights that an author sold to a publisher are US only, then the publisher only has the legal power to sell withiin the US. Usually the rights, though, are North American, and then foreign rights can be sold individually or as "world" rights.
Some retailers don't always abide by those rights and do sell to customers outside the legally sanctioned area. It would probably be up to the author to constrain that.
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The other thing to remember is that Canada is very much a special case: It's part of both North America and the Commonwealth. What happens is if the book is sold to a US publisher first they normally buy NA rights (US and Canada). If it's first sold to a UK publisher they buy Commonwealth rights (includes Canada). So Canada may not get the editions of certain books that people expect.
This is why Canadians see these rights issues more than many other nationalities.