Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormchild
So how do you explain Smashwords and other similar sites?
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For smashwords, when I upload a book, I agree that it's okay to distribute to all countries. Same with Amazon. I agree to worldwide distribution. (I have the option to withhold those rights.) So when Amazon opened in Spain, Italy, France and Germany, bam, my books were there.
In the case of publishers, they basically buy the rights to certain countries (and then resell them to counterparts in those countries under various deals.) Some of the publishers may indded have the rights, but not do anything with them. They may deem it too expensive to pursue, sales are too low, or simply drop the ball.
I've heard many an author complain that their publisher has the rights and have done nothing with them.
Sometimes the author keeps these rights and then is unable to find a publisher in the various countries.
There are not a lot of agents who have the contacts and expertise to sell to other counties although they do partner with agents in those countries (who then get a share of the profits, so the contracts get quite complicated because an agent gets a larger share of profits generally for selling foreign rights. But often the book can be sold for more money upfront because there is usually a sales record by then or a success record already that proves it is worthwhile.)
The reverse is true of UK authors coming over this way (or any author from another country.) The UK publisher may hold the rights and not sell them or they sell them and then a publisher here sells the book. But they may not be eager to expand the distribution until there is a sales record.
In smaller companies, it is possible for the publisher to find a distributor here to get the books into stores (without selling rights through another publisher). Part of what slows things down is the negotiations and also, to some extent, the publisher may be waiting to see if a book sells well enough to bother TRYING to sell the rights. Again, I've seen many an author complain that someone or other is "sitting" on the rights doing nothing with them.
The same can happen with audio rights. If they aren't sold lock/stock/barrel to the publisher it is up to the author and/or agent to sell them separately. Some agents are better at this than others.
A small publisher, (since been bought up) called Creme de la Crime used to publish in the UK. 6 months later the books would appear here. Creme bought the rights to distribute, but it took time to get the printing and whatnot worked out along with ramping up distribution after the initial release in the UK. A case of one person doing all the work to publish several novels per year. So the delay there was more a case of how the process was baked into the system. The priority was to get the edited book out, do promo and get it off the ground. This was followed by a tandem effort to get the files to the printer/distributor here with early copies for reviewers and whatnot. That process usually ran about 6 months behind the initial release.
I think it improved some with ebooks, but right about that time Creme was bought by a larger publisher.