International rights are free money

International rights are free money. Well, sort of. You’ve already gone to the trouble of writing a book, so selling rights enables you to get paid for it more than once and reach an audience around the world.

It’s a big, wide world of opportunities. You could be big in Japan – or Germany, Brazil or Latvia for that matter – and some authors are better known overseas than in their own country. But then again, it’s also a world of choice for international publishers: they can, and do, scour the world looking for the perfect book for their list.

I specialize in selling international rights, so it’s my job to find the right international partners for the authors I represent. At a basic level, I need to know what works where. Commercial women’s fiction sells well in Germany, but cultural differences make it a tough sell in Japan. If I want to sell anything in the Netherlands, I need to do it quickly because the large number of English speakers there will buy the UK edition if a Dutch translation is not available immediately.

There’s also an element of match-making involved. Which editor will love a particular idea? Which author and publisher will work well together? I want to create a lasting partnership that will grow and develop over an author’s career.

Making that work means talking to and listening to international publishers all the time. I need to keep them up to date with all the latest news about the authors I represent. And I need to understand what they’re looking for, so that when I tell them I have the perfect book for them, they drop everything to read it.

I keep in touch with editors and scouts (their UK-based eyes and ears) by phone and email on a daily basis. But it’s a personal business and face to face meetings are vital for building and maintaining relationships. I travel regularly to see publishers in their offices or attend international book fairs.

The biggest fair of all is held in Frankfurt every October, when tens of thousands of exhibitors from all over the world fill half a dozen vast exhibition halls. It’s an exciting and exhausting blur of eighteen meetings a day, friendships renewed and new contacts made. Frankfurt legend is full of tales of editors staying up all night to read hot manuscripts and huge deals being done on the spot. In an age of fast and cheap communications, the vast majority of deals are now done away from the fair, but it’s still a vital exchange of ideas.

The territory I cover might be wider, but my role has much in common with a UK agent. I need to find the right publisher, haggle over advances, negotiate contracts, agree publishing and marketing plans, and check royalty statements. I’m also there to share information between all an author’s international publishers and, above all, make sure that we all work together to develop an author’s career and build their readership. In the end, it’s not quite free money but it can make all the difference to an author.


Louisa Pritchard runs LPA, an agency specialising in the sale of international rights on behalf of literary agencies and publishers.  LPA’s clients include Legend Press, Saqi Books, The Science Factory and The Zeno Agency.