Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike L
It's not so much a question of the author selling the rights to different publishers in different countries. What used to happen is that the main publisher (the one who first entered into a contract with the author) would buy worldwide rights, but would only actually publish in their own territory. They would then sell the rights to other territories to publishers in those other areas.
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It's both, actually. In many cases, the author (or her agent) withholds foreign rights from the native publisher, in hopes of marketing those rights independently. In other cases, the original publisher does the sublicensing. But either way, there are usually geographical restrictions attached. Ebooks haven't been important enough in the formula for anyone to even think about making them a special case. That's changing, but it's going to take a while.
So when you're frustrated about not being able to buy a book from, say, Sony--don't blame Sony. And don't blame the publisher. Blame history.
