Don't Right
Them Off Yet
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (APRIL 2005)
The slide
has been slow, but inexorable: Subsidiary Rights, once
one of the biggest profit centers in publishing, has
retreated over the years to a marginalized -- though
still essential -- role in most houses. leaving foreign
rights as the focus of many departments. With this reconstitution
and reconfiguration, those in the business are finding
that flexibility is key. Hyperion rights director Jill
Sansone says her tanle at London or Frankfurt is as
busy as ever, but she and her department fill any spare
time they may have running their audio and calendar
program. She's also responsible for all the movie tie-ins
that come to them via Disney's Tocuhstone Pictures for
which they always have world rights.
Meredith
is another publisher who is focusing on foreign rights,
but not because of any falloff in its domestic rights.
Instead, says Editorial Director Linda Cunningham,
its purview is broadening in response to a list that
travels better abroad, and to efforts to increase its
presence in foreign markets. Successful television shows
like American Shopper, which is now
launched in the UK, haven't hurt (even though, in this
case, rights belong to Haines).
The picture
isn't exactly rosy, even in foreign rights,as sales
are down, especially to European publishers. Weak markets
in places like Germany, resentment of US foreign policy
and the rise of nationalism are all mentioned as possible
causes. Meanwhile, more literary agents are holding
on to these rights, giving publishers less to sell.
(This is less true with illustrated books, which still
need their foreign co-editions to make the numbers work
on their U.S. edition.) And in a developing mini trend,
some foreign rights departments are moving out of the
US, to the publisher's UK office when that option exists.
Rodale moved its foreign rights to
London several years ago and two academic publishers
have indicated that they will do so in the next year.
The reconfiguration
began in the early '80s, as publisher consolidation
eroded the rights market for paperbacks and by the mid-'90s
book club consolidation squeezed those dollars too.
At its height in the '70s, sales of a book like Ragtime,
or book club rights to The World According To Garp could
bring in seven figures. Today's paltry book club deals
sometimes dip below a mere four figures, and most books
are published in paperback by the original hardcover
publisher. True there are exceptions, like James Patterson's
seven figure deal with Bookspan or Scribner's sale to
Harcourt of Temple Grandin's ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION
for significant six figures.
Even the smaller
publishers, who would have auctioned their paperback
rights in the past, are negotiating joint ventures with
their paperback publishers in order to keep their authors
happy. Walker shared Dava Sobel
with Penguin and Harcourt
has a relationship with MacAdam Cage,
Audrey ( Time Traveller's Wife) Niffenberger's
publisher.
In fact, says
Nina Hoffman, President of National
Geographic Books and Education (and once a
rights director) sub rights is an ever-decreasing profit
center, to the point where now "It's a marketing
function as much as a sales function," promoting
authors and their books through serial sales and the
like. At NGS the domestic sub rights department, along
with special sales and custom publishing, reports into
the sales department.
Susan
Peterson at Baker & Taylor
(also a former rights director) said that she sees the
subrights market as increasingly being audio, large
print and foreign rights. But even there, audio and
other electronic rights are now migrating to distribution
deals, handled by the sales department or an electronic
publishing division.
Others agree
that the distinction between the sale of the physical
book, and the sale of an intangible - the right to recreate
an ebook or allow the downloading of an audiobook (or
some part thereof) - is quickly dissolving. One academic
publisher, for instance, is folding its domestic rights
into to its electronic database division. S&S
now sells its audiobooks - including digital downloads
- through its sales department.
Random
's Claire Tisne says that "the
rights world is changing, but not necessarily getting
smaller; it's repositioning itself." As the role
of rights changes, Tisne seized upon the importance
of looking at rights as an "extension of editorial"
and emphasizing the importance of "tightening"
the relationship between rights and editorial as much
as possible. For Free Press EVP and Publisher Martha
Levin (yet another ertstwhile rights director),
it's the relationship between the rights department
and publicity that she considers important, especially
on serial rights where co-ordinating them with the book's
publicity campaign is key.
At the end
of the day, though, says Houghton Mifflin's
Debbie Engel, there are still many
rights that still have to be sold. Book club advances
are lower but the books still have to be submitted and
can still earn the same money over time. Permissions
has become a bigger source of revenue (see PT
September 2004), and children's rights continue to be
very strong. Determined to make its rights processing
efficient, and its records complete, HM invested in
Nextance, an electronic contract and
rights management system, which went live in late November
in the trade and reference division. The other divisions
will follow at some future time.
©2005
Publishing Trends
