Self-publishing a single book is not likely to provide an income to most writers. As noted in another article here on Publish-Yourself though, it does provide a way of earning some money for your time, as well as getting word out about your work to the big whigs in the publishing industry - it certainly worked well for me. Beyond those advantages though, there are other ways of building up your income in self-publishing. One, obviously, is to increase your catalogue of books offered. The other is to sell foreign language rights to your book.

I'm hardly a veteran of publishing. However, I have been lucky enough to see my first book get sold to over ten foreign publishers, in languages ranging from Hebrew and Russian to Portugese and Korean. As such, I think it would be worthwhile to note the opportunities that foreign rights can offer to the self-publisher.

The first thing to note is that most foreign publishers are not going to offer a deal that will make you rich, although it depends in large part on the power of the currency you work with and how strong the currency of the foreign publisher is. However, if you can manage to attract a number of foreign publishers, the aggregate may well be something that allows your book to be legitimately called a financial success.

The question is, how to attract foreign interest, when you are a self-publisher with no real foreign contacts to speak of? First off, the very basics - set up a website! Even if it is only one page, with a picture of the cover and a synopsis, it is better than nothing. The Internet allows every publisher a 'way in' to foreign markets. Needless to say though, if you do just put up a simple page and leave it at that, you're still going to need luck on your side. The better option is to create a website which others are going to link to - and to do that, you need to offer something. Some sensational news, a unique Internet attraction, or just a simple discussion board related to the topics you cover. That's something that can't be written out for you - it's something you'll need to approach on a case by case basis.

Furthermore, you should pay attention to the markets you are likely to be able to target. Take, for example, the book 1421: The Year The Chinese Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies. If you had written this book, what approach do you take? Firstly, there is a very obvious (and large) foreign market: China. The book provides a wonderful ego boost for any Chinese reader, in that it describes how the Chinese may have beaten Columbus to the Americas. Secondly, it provides a wonderful, controversial topic to build your marketing around. Look at your own book, and find its strengths. How do you best get word out about it?

If the opportunity does arise to sell foreign rights, then I also sincerely suggest employing an agent for the deal. Sure, you have to give up 15% (usually) of the money, but in many cases the agent will be able to negotiate the deal upwards to more than compensate. Local agents may also have contacts with multiple publishing houses in that particular country/territory, thus raising interest in your work (and therefore competition for the deal...a good thing!).

How much is a reasonable deal? The Publishers Marketing Association website gives the following rule-of-thumb:

Multiply the total number of copies contemplated for the first printing by the estimated retail price to get the gross revenue; then multiply that by the royalty percentage (somewhere between 5 and 10 percent) to get a figure for a typical advance.

For example:

First printing 5,000 copies
Retail price $10
Revenue from 1st printing (gross) $50,000
Royalty percentage 6%

Typical advance $3,000

There are some things to watch when negotiating foreign rights deals - hopefully an agent will keep an eye on these, but it's worth having some idea yourself:

• Be aware of the territory covered by the deal. You might sign away Portugese language rights without realising that will include publication in Brazil. Also, giving worldwide Spanish language rights could cause friction with any United States publishing deal, as there is a large Spanish reading audience there.

• Be aware of the tax situation between your country and the negotiating publisher's. While there are now many treaties which allow for uninhibited flow of monies between nations, you could be badly caught out in some cases, and lose most of your advance to a foreign government's tax.
• Keep an eye on the term of the deal. Five years is most common, anything longer then you should be expecting a premium from the publisher.

As I said, I'm hardly an expert on foreign rights, so if you are going into a contract do seek professional assistance. However, it is well worth the while of any publisher to take advantage of the extra income that can be provided by foreign rights deals, and I hope that the above points provide some assistance.

The above article in no way constitutes authoritative advice. Please seek professional assistance before entering into any contract. Publish-Yourself.info disclaims any liability in regards to the above article.