Selling to a Foreign Publisher – Part Three

In the first part of this series, we examined the benefits of pursuing subsidiary rights sales to foreign publishers.  In the second installment we began doing some research into a prospective publisher to determine if they might be a suitable target to query.  Now we’re going to finish up our research and make some final determinations regarding whether to move forward or look for a different opportunity.

My next step would be to visit the publisher’s website and see what I can learn directly from the source itself.  From my earlier research I knew Bragelonne’s site could be found at http://www.bragelonne.fr so that’s where I would head next.

The first thing I notice when doing so is that the front page of the publisher’s site features a selection of fantasy and science fiction works, including books by James Herbert, Kevin J Anderson, Richelle Mead, and Brian Lumley, just to name a few.  The covers are well designed, with intriguing artwork that catches the eye and draws the viewer in, and all of them are prominently displayed, which is another good sign.  I would add one tick to the positive side of my mental checklist as a result.

While I don’t read French, that doesn’t prevent me from learning more thanks to the care the publisher has taken to lay out the site in an easy to follow manner and the help of an online translator. One page is dedicated to displaying information on the authors that they currently work with and I would spend a few minutes perusing the list.  By doing so, I would also find that they publish books by urban fantasy authors such as Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison, and Jacqueline Carey, as well as horror writers Graham Masterton, Simon Clark, and Robert McCammon.  Clearly, my work would fit in well with this crowd and another tick would go in the positive column.

I would then turn to their version of an “About” page to see how the company presents itself to the world.

Doing so for our hypotehetical target, Bragelonne, I would find the following: “Created on April 1, 2000, the Bragelonne editions are devoted to the literature of l’ imaginary, that which rhyme with escape, ventures, magic and marvellous… Bragelonne publishes each year more than 70 works and account with its catalogue more than 200 titles.”

There are two pieces of good news here, if I were really targeting this publisher  – the fact that the company has been in business for several years and that it appears to be doing quite well with a growing catalogue of titles.  This would raise my confidence that they know how to promote and support the books that they publish.  That’s three positive notations, but it is what I find at the end of their descriptive paragraph that would really seal it for me:

“Since October 2006, the Bragelonne editions added a stone to l’ building while launching a very new collection: L’ Shade. The latter shelters works dedicated to terror and fantastic, all resulting from the Anglo-Saxon and French-speaking literature, to make you quiver pleasure.”

Not only is Bragelonne dedicated to publishing works in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, but they have created an entire line devoted to horror.  Even better, they are focusing on authors from France and the US/UK.

My next step would be to use all of the information I gathered to make a decision as to whether or not I felt this would be an appropriate target for me.  If I were doing this for real, I’d probably say yes.

With that decision made, there would be one more thing I would want to do before leaving their site and that would be to double check the editor’s name that I picked up from my earlier research.  With that information in hand, I could move on to the next step in the process – deciding what I’d want to present and then drafting my initial query to the editor.

Tagged as: book sales, foreign publishers, how to sell your book, how to sell your novel, Publishing, subsidiary rights sales