Do you know how I go about my job of selling the foreign rights to our books? It all boils down to two major events a year - the London Book Fair every April and the Frankfurt Book Fair every October. The cycle begins like this: I show books to foreign publishers and editors who might want to translate our books (largely non-fiction publishers). We make face-to-face connections (very important, now and then), and they can see many of our books, both backlist and forthcoming. They choose the best possibilities, and on my return, I send them copies of the books for their review and (hopefully) acquisition. A deal is made.
Technically, the London Book Fair defines itself as “the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels.”
In attendance from Quirk Books were Jessica, Director of Sales, myself (Robin, Foreign Rights Manager) and Brett, Vice President of Operations. We held a booth in our UK distributor’s stand. We booked meetings all day, every day, and boy, were we busy!
Brett oversees the export portion of Quirk’s business, and met with our distributors and other possible partners, as well. He also met with some interesting publicity people and representatives from our key accounts in the UK. (We do very well in the UK. We’ve been told sometimes that our sense of humour is very UK.)
Jessica and I met with publisher after publisher, sometimes with our handy subagents (covering whole territories, like the French language) along for help. First a Swede, then a Russian, a Japanese, a French, a Brazilian, and so on. It is quite confusing by 6 pm, when you aren’t sure exactly what accent you are hearing. (No, we don’t speak other languages; the international publishing world caters to English-speakers at these things.) I’m not sure if sales will be good, mediocre, or lousy in this poor economy. Some publishers are buying less, but others need books like ours - funny and entertaining, to lift their readers’ spirits. People still want to laugh and be taken away from their troubles. Look at the success of Harlequin and how well the romance novel is doing these days! Fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, zombie literature - people want to be swept away from reality.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies attracted the world! Publishing people of all cultures think this book is hilarious and strange. We offered the poster, and the responses alternated between enthusiasm and slight disgust - just what we were going for. While we don’t make deals at the fairs (because more than one of us are meeting with competing publishers, and we don’t really have time to discuss offers and meetings there), we sealed a few directly before our trip, and heard from our foreign agents of auctions in their territories. It’s an international sensation!
Also notable was the reaction to Gig Posters Volume 1. It’s a gorgeous book! (And soon to decorate my new apartment walls.)
We have yet to analyze the success of the fair - our meetings were great, and people were still smiling - but will sales continue to rise for translation? That’s yet to see. I’m working hard to get those books out!
