The recent announcement that Amazon has opened new Kindle
stores in Italy and Spain has been met with lots of excitement in the Kindle
community, but it begs the question of just how good Kindle’s expansion in
foreign markets is for the independent authors who publish with them.
According to PC magazine :
“The new stores have a
total of more than 900,000 titles in various languages, including many
international best sellers, the company noted. Amazon also announced
that independent authors are free to use Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to make
their works available in the Italian and Spanish Kindle
Stores.”
A further breakdown of the numbers indicates only 22,000
titles are available in Spanish in the Spanish store, while only 16,000 titles
are available in Italian in that country’s Kindle store. So if, as an
independent, your book isn’t available in either of those languages, your chance
of significant sales in those or any other country where Amazon has a Kindle
store are pretty slim.
Further, you’re competing with international bestsellers;
that means titles whose translation rights have already been sold throughout the
world, usually through an agent or larger publishing enterprise.
It’s no secret that foreign rights sales can make significant
money for an author, often much more than the original version. And the global
nature of today’s economy means that rights sales are booming. The problem is
that within the area of foreign rights, there’s a significant scramble going on
for territory. In exchange for translating your work, publishers want
exclusive rights to publish in their territory. And if an English
language version of your book is readily available in their local Kindle store,
chances are they’ll not only pass on ebook translation rights, but on print
rights as well. That spells a potentially significant loss of revenues for
authors, especially independents.
Too many aspiring authors, anxious to get their work “out
there” have only a dim understanding of just what rights they’re giving up in
signing Kindle’s direct publishing contract, and unfortunately, many independent
houses now insist on “worldwide” rights as a means of skirting the whole
issue.
It’s an area of the industry that raises a lot of questions,
and most of those questions don’t have any easy answers. But make no mistake,
Amazon’s wholesale distribution practices and new Kindle stores are for the good
of Amazon, not individual authors. Most important is for authors to be aware of
their rights, and to find publishers and representatives willing to protect them
in the global marketplace. Negotiate in your own best interests. Ask if your
agent or publisher has contacts or partners in the foreign rights community. We
certainly have those contacts at Village Green, but many don’t.
NEVER sign away world rights unless you have to. Some agents
cave on it just to make the deal and some publishers will try and convince you
that translation and subrights are just not an issue unless you have a track
record. But that’s just not true. If you’re in it for the long term, the
potential for foreign rights sales is just as important for your first book as
your last one.
For more good reasons to keep your eye on amazon, read the following:
