Hachette Group Divides Foreign Book Market

JanePublishing Newsbook-sales / Hachette/Grand Central1 Comments

Apparently a much discussed topic at BookExpo America 2006 was the issue of foreign rights, particularly European ones. Most American publishers advocate an open European market but some UK publishers are contracting exclusive deals for distribution which means that many foreign rights deals aren’t getting accomplished.

Hachette, one of the big six publishers, decided that its UK division would have exclusive European rights for any books for which Hachette owns world rights. US division would retain the Far East and Asia rights. It was a clause that James Patterson had requested in his contract and made “common sense” to the David Young, the head of the US division of Hachette.

Some European publishers are unhappy about this arguing that the granting exclusive rights to a UK publisher will create a downturn of sales for Hachette American authors.

Via Publisher’s Weekly.

Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

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