I'm an American author whose book is set in a foreign country. I've received an offer from a publisher in that country. They want to translate the book, and publish it there. This is great news, but the market is very small. I also want to publish in the US, not just because it is a bigger market but also because it is my home. Should I hold off on accepting the foreign offer until (if!) I can work something out with a US publisher? If I do go ahead and publish abroad, then can I revise the MS for a US publisher or is it set in stone and unrevisable once published?
If it's a very small market, your US publisher may not mind your having sold the rights already. And more and more, agents seem to be going after foreign sales for their clients, so publishers are a bit more accustomed to not having a lot of foreign rights for novels. So that's unlikely to be an issue.
As for revision, every translation fiddles with the exact phrasing of the text--if it doesn't then the translation won't sound natural to native speakers. So some differences between the English and other language editions are expected.
So if there were some way for you to be sure you weren't going to do very much revision (for instance if you've decided already that you're going to be inflexible and hard to work with--which I assume is not the case), then there would be no problem. But imagine your US editor has a bunch of suggestions that get you really excited and that (for instance) change the ending completely.
There probably still wouldn't be a problem with copyright between the two editions, but how would you feel about that scenario? Would you want two very different versions of your story out there--when one of them might end up feeling to you like a beta version and not the story you most want to share with readers?
42 comments:
But, but, but: nobody who matters would ever know the difference.
(Just trying on my American chauvinism to see if it still fits me.)
That's a very interesting situation. I think that's great that the book is getting published in the country the story is set in, though.
- Nicholas
I have no advice to share, sorry. But I find it interesting that the story is set in Sweden, because I'm Swedish. /Jess
I don't know what other language/country the questioner meant. I chose a language at random for the post title. Sorry to disappoint.
The title of the post is funny, though. Don't know if any of you heard of one Stieg Larsson? He happened to write his books in Swedish because, obviously, he was Swedish. And if I'm not mistaken he's got quite a big thing going, in Sweden as well as elsewhere. Being published in a small market first may not be a bad thing. Not at all. It might be a great start. There's actually a world outside of the US too.
EA, when you speak of the "Commonwealth model" are you referring to the Canadian practice as well of Lending rights payments to publishers, authors and illustrators by Library and Schools? I can see this working very well for the US when it comes to ebooks. I think more Countries then not have had this practice in place for a while now and it will transition well for ebooks as they become more and more popular. I see our local library offers ebooks now that you download and it then expires after the lend time.
The Library itself has an app that allows you to check on new books coming in to the Library, your borrowing history, fines etc. I am, admittedly, becoming app mad!:)
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The idea you posted about your draft was good, its true that us market was so small, but i think that its your decision what to do, if you think that its better opportunity for you so go ahead.Thanks for posting this.
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I wouldn't expect any of your books to be allowed into China. lol. But, it probably could be published in Hong Kong. If so, I wouldn't be planning on visiting China anytime soon, if I were you. Maybe your book is under the radar and hasn't been picked up by the MSS (Ministry of State Security). It might work in Taiwan though the Ma administration is focusing on having good ties with the mainland. Taiwan has more freedom than Hong Kong. The gov't probably couldn't intervene. But it would need to be translated into Chinese. If you want to publish in Taiwan, you would need to include Taiwan somewhere in the timeline, maybe as a resistance movement as it would be high on the PRC's list to take over Taiwan once the U.S.N. was no longer around. Still, I doubt if one of the main bookstores would pick it up as they have just opened stores in Hong Kong in an effort to compete with the PRC's chain that dominates sales in HK.
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