Just Throw it Up There

What you can and can't self-publish

Hi friends,

I hope you enjoyed all the rain this weekend—if you were on the east coast. I actually got to read, even with my kid underfoot! Wonders never cease.

Anyway, I got a great question in the Q&A box for this week, and it’s a big one, so I wanted to go into detail here. Hope you enjoyed the Q&A last Thursday which I inadvertently sent to everyone instead of just subscribers. What was that old Community Chest card from Monopoly? Bank error in your favor!

K asks: I recently published my first book with a Big 5 publisher who bought only North American rights. My agent hasn’t been able to secure any foreign publishers. I’m eager to get my book to as many readers as possible, because it’s my manifesto for how to make the world better. I’m frustrated by readers from Australia, Germany, etc. contacting me to say that they can’t buy my book. (typically they can find some way to order the physical book with a 1-2 month wait (!), but it’s usually impossible for them to access the ebook or the audiobook, which I narrate). 

My question is: what are my options for self-publishing the physical book, the ebook, and the audiobook in English, outside North America? And what are the implications? (Will it hurt my chance of future Big 5 book deals or is it showing gumption?) Can I just throw the ebook up on Kindle everywhere outside North America? What about the audiobook, how does one self-publish an audiobook internationally? I’m least concerned about self-publishing the physical book internationally, but if there’s a reasonable way to do that, I’d love to know about it.

This is a very good question and a very big one and it has a lot of moving parts. First, let’s go over some rights basics. This post goes into detail about foreign rights, but we’ll also talk about the the audio and ebook subsidiary rights here, too. In this case, the letter writer sold North American rights to a US publisher, which means they said the US publisher has permission to produce and sell the book in North America (as well as the Philippines and some other non-continental territories because: colonialism and/or US military occupation) but the US publisher cannot translate it or sell it to anyone else to translate it or sell copies in English anywhere else. It’s true that readers can sometimes buy books from places like BookDepository.com and even Amazon, regardless of where they live and what the rights situation is, and it is just a thing that happens. As readers reported to the letter writer, the shipping is costly and slow and this prevents the practice from eating significantly into an author’s rights and we all just kind of deal with it.

So why don’t authors just sell all rights to the publisher so they can do all the editions at the same time? Well, some people feel that way., and for some books that makes a lot of sense. But often, authors can make more money by selling their rights one by one, through their agent, than by giving those rights to the publisher, and in either case, just because rights are available doesn’t mean anyone is going to physically produce the book, or audiobook. Even if the US publisher has the right to ship books in English to France, it doesn’t mean they will. They don’t always produce an audiobook, even if they have the rights. Sometimes this alone is a reason not to sell all rights to the publisher. It’s not if you build it, they will come. You’ve probably heard me say that before.

Consider this: the UK’s book industry is 25% the size of the US’s. The UK publishes a good number of US books on top of their own, but still, there are just fewer book buyers there, and fewer people overall!, and they are not reading 4 times the amount we do, nor are they reading the same books we do in the US at the same rate at the same time. Your book might be great and popular in the US, but there just might not be a discernible market for it in other countries, and, well, there isn’t much you can do about it unless you want to like get big on Australian Twitter or something. (Kidding. I have no idea if that would work.)

The letter writer’s question here, then, is a good one. Can’t they just do it themselves, especially with how easy it is to self-publish things, even internationally? Technically, they can. If they control the rights, they can do it. But once they do it, they cannot undo it. You, letter writer, should talk to your agent about this in GREAT DETAIL before you do anything, and I have a feeling this is probably the one thing you already know. :) You can technically put the English language ebook for sale online and set the territory to <everything but the US>, I assume. I have never done this, but from what I understand, you can control the distribution territory of your content. There may be up- or downsides to this in terms of how much you earn from these sales, because of course any self-publishing platform wants you to do EVERYTHING with them. But you’ll have to look at the fine print there.

You can also do this with an audiobook. Amazon has a program called ACX where you can hire a narrator and get it made, and I assume you can also exclude the US as a territory when you release it.

But you do not own the rights to the design of your book, or the master recording of the audiobook, even if you read it yourself. You only own the words you wrote, not the format other companies designed them into. You cannot ask the publisher to just send you the final layout of your book or the master recording of the audio so you can self-publish it in Germany in English. You can probably pay the US publisher for the final designed files or master recording, but I doubt that would be cheap. If a publisher is feeling particularly tetchy about this, they may not want to give you the copyedited manuscript, because they paid for the copyediting, not you. This won’t probably happen all the time, but it could. You would also have to pay for the use of the cover the US publisher made, for the ebook and the audiobook, separately.

If you can’t get the files from the publisher, you would have to create them yourself, from scratch.

You would also have to do this each for any different platform on which you want it to be available, unless you are ok with it only being available on one platform. That usually means Amazon. You get better terms if you publish exclusively with Amazon (that’s how they get you, and by you, I mean us) so if you want it available on B&N, or Waterstones, you have to do everything all over again on each of those platforms.

You would also likely have to send your agent checks for 15% of the money you make from those sales, but you can talk to your agent about that. Amazon pays monthly, from what I understand.

Oh, and I don’t know how you would get any of these editions into foreign libraries. I think that is a whole ‘nother can of worms, though Amazon has just recently said they would put their self-published books in libraries in the US, so that’s at least a step in the right direction.

If you were to do these things, it’s my professional opinion that it would mean no UK/Aus publisher would offer you a deal, now or down the line, for this book. If you release the book into those markets, any publisher there would think welp, there’s no meat on the bone left for me and move on to another project. If you ever want a traditional UK/Aus deal, do not put the ebook or audiobook up yourself. Talk to your agent, but that’s what I’d tell you if you were my client.

Maybe that’s ok with you. Maybe you can make something that looks/sounds really good and everyone will be happy. But, as you can see, it’s not as simple as just throwing it up there (which I don’t think you meant fliply). It would be a lot of work. And if you don’t have a strong platform or market in those non-North American territories, there might be little to show for your work. It isn’t if you build it, they will come there either. And while it is wonderful and sincere and flattering for people to tell you that they want your book but can’t get it, the dozen or so people who tell you that do not constitute a market. If you’re getting hundreds of such requests, that can constitute a market and you should tell your agent so they can tell their foreign rights co-agents and that might move the needle.

I don’t think doing any of this would mean you would never get another foreign deal for this (except as otherwise stated herein) or any other book you do, nor do I think it would get you extra points for gumption. I think the benefits you would reap would be sales, however limited or robust, and the costs would be your time, money, and effort.

It sucks to have people tell you they want something—your book!!!!!—and you can’t give it to them. It is hard to disappoint people, especially when you are disappointed right along with them. But, the alternatives aren’t necessarily great either, as they come with real world costs.

• A note about Australia: it’s possible your US publisher will be able to send copies there! If a UK or Australian publisher does not release their own version of your book within 30 days of the US publication, then the US can ship books there. This is also one of those ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ parts of publishing that also probably has roots in colonialism, but it might work in your favor here. Ask your editor and agent about it.

See, I told you this was a big one. Go talk to your agent about it in greater detail. It might be right for you or your book. But it might not, and it won’t be easy. Either way, very best of luck.

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Some good news here at Kate McKean HQ! My short story “Spring Migration” was published last week at Catapult! I’m so thrilled. I think this is my first online fiction publication since GRAD SCHOOL and I graduated during the FIRST GWB administration! I hope you read it. It’s about Florida and birding and money and parents and leaving and coming back.

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Take care, friends. I hope you’re enjoying being fully vaccinated, if you are, and if you’re not, I hope you will be soon.

OXOXOX,

Kate