Our series on Selling to a Foreign Publisher continues as we draft a hypothetical query letter that we would use to try and generate some interest from our target publisher.  As I outlined in my last post, I would be about three quarters of the way done with the letter itself at this point, having already decided on which of my works to pitch to the publisher and what I want to say about them.  Now the next step would be to add a few high points that explain why the publisher would benefit from acquiring the foreign rights to my work rather than some other work that they might be considering at the same time.

Back to my hypothetical submission to Bragelonne.  I would more than likely lead with the sales results that the German publisher received for publishing their edition of the Templar books as my first piece of evidence.  I do this because the French and German markets are rather similar in several ways and the strong sales of the German edition could, in effect, foreshadow strong sales for a French edition as well.  I would also probably mention the other territories where the trilogy had been acquired in order to show that the German edition was not an isolated occurrence.

My paragraph might end up looking like this:

The Templar Chronicles consist of three books – Heretic, A Scream of Angels, and A Tear in the Sky.  The trilogy was released beginning in 2007 by German publisher Droemer Knaur.  Book one, Der Ketzer, debuted at #51 on the bestseller list and has sold more than 50,000 copies to date.  Books two and three, Der Engel and Die Schatten, followed in late 2008/early 2009 and have each sold roughly 20,000 copies since their release.  Foreign rights to the trilogy have also sold to Ecksmo in Russia and Replika in Poland and have been optioned for feature film production.

Since I have a couple of high profile endorsements of the series from writers that Bragelonne has previously published, namely Clive Barker and Peter Straub, I would also throw those in for good measure just before my closing line.

At this point all I would have to do is go back to the beginning of the letter/email and come up with a decent introductory paragraph.  I would want to use some information about the company to show that I’m familiar with who they are and what they publish because everyone likes to know that what they are doing is important and editors usually aren’t any different.  They love books and want other people to love them too.  They want to know that what they are doing is having an impact on the reader, so this approach, while standard, is always a good one.

Here is the full text of the sample query letter we’ve put together so far:

Dear (Editor’s Name),

Having been very impressed with the work that you’ve been doing with authors such as Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher, and Simon Green, as well as with the success of your L’Ombre collection, I thought I would touch base and see if you might be interested in a possible French translation to my bestselling Templar Chronicles trilogy.

In this action-based urban fantasy series, the ancient Templar Order has been resurrected as a secret combat arm of the Vatican, charged with defending mankind from supernatural threats and enemies. The world at large is unaware of the Order’s existence and the Templars take great pains to keep it that way. “Sometimes the Lord’s work is best accomplished in the shadows”, is a popular saying among the troops.

At center stage is Knight Commander Cade Williams, a veteran of the Order and a man torn between his thirst for vengeance and his need to discover what happened to him during an encounter with a supernatural entity five years before. Cade leads the famed Echo Team, a special forces-style unit that is called in only when the situation has become particularly dire. Echo is the best of the best, there is no doubt about that, but the fact that they are led by a man rumored to have more than a few unusual abilities of his own leave many within the Order more than a little uncomfortable in dealing with them.  Darkness surrounds us, even in the light of day, and the series is designed to reflect this. In the Templar world, all is not as it seems, and it is up to the Order to protect man from his own ignorance.

The Templar Chronicles consist of three books – Heretic, A Scream of Angels, and A Tear in the Sky.  The trilogy was released beginning in 2007 by German publisher Droemer Knaur.  Book one, Der Ketzer, debuted at #51 on the bestseller list and has sold more than 50,000 copies to date.  Books two and three, Der Engel and Die Schatten, followed in late 2008/early 2009 and have each sold roughly 20,000 copies since their release.  Foreign rights to the trilogy have also sold to Ecksmo in Russia and Replika in Poland and have been optioned by American screenwriter Ben Magid for feature film production.

Here are some of the comments made by others about the series:

“First-rate, stylish work from Mr. Nassise, with a steady escalation of the story’s speed that makes it almost literally breath-taking.” — Clive Barker

“With HERETIC, Joseph Nassise kicks off his TEMPLAR CHRONICLES in fine, swaggering style. This book bobs and weaves like the young Muhammed Ali, keeping us off-guard and entertained with its every surprising move.” — Peter Straub

If you would be interested in taking a look, I’d be happy to forward copies of each of the books for your consideration.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Joe Nassise

At this point, there would be nothing left to do but sit back and wait to see if my contact bore any fruit.

So there you have  it – my step by step process for identifying potential foreign markets and approaching them to see if there is any interest.  I’ve used this process to sell my work in Italy, Poland, and most recently for a multi-book deal in six different territories.  It really isn’t all that different from the approach that most agents make, either.

Questions?

Once I had selected a foreign publisher and decided to approach them about the possibility of publishing some of my work, I would next need to write an introductory query letter or email to catch their attention.  Like most of what I do, I usually approach this process in a step-by-step fashion:

1. Decide which of my works would best fit into their catalog
2. Develop a short summary that highlights the work itself.
3. Cover a few high points that show why it would be beneficial for them to  acquire the work in question

Using our hypothetical submission to Bragelonne as an example, here is how I would work through this process if I were doing it today.

I currently control subsidiary rights to several of my books, including my debut novel Riverwatch, the three books in the Templar Chronicles series (Heretic, A Scream of Angels, and A Tear in the Sky) and the Jeremiah Hunt trilogy (Eyes to See, Hands to Heal, and A Soul to Lose.)  Interestingly enough, I’ve sold foreign language rights in different territories to all of them – Riverwatch to Italy, the Templar Chronicles to Germany, Russia and Poland, and the Hunt trilogy to Germany.

If I were submitting to Brageloone, I would probably decide to eliminate Riverwatch as a possible contender as it is a horror novel and Bragelonne’s catalog runs more toward SF and urban fantasy.  Riverwatch was also the very first novel I ever wrote and after seven years I’m not as confident in my ability to sell it as I am in some of my more recent works.

That would leave me to choose between the two trilogies.

Five of the six books were sold as originals to Droemer Knaur, a major publisher in Germany (the exception being the first book in the Templar Chronicles, which first sold to Pocket Books.)  The Templar Chronicles books were released in 2007 and 2008, to good results; the first book debuted on the German and Swiss bestsellers lists and has sold more than 50,000 copies to date while books two and three have each sold more than 25,000 copies.  That they have also been acquired for publication in Russia and Poland is another point in their favor as this shows their viability in more than one market.

On the other hand, the Jeremiah Hunt books are scheduled to be released starting in Dec 2009 as part of the launch of a brand new imprint for Droemer Knaur, Pan Books, which means they will have a lot of promotional push behind them.  They also just sold in the US to Tor Books for my first hardcover publication, which means a fair promotional push on that end as well.

Either one would actually be worth submitting.  I would probably lean more toward the Templar Chronicles trilogy if I were actually doing this today, as  I’ve got a bit more of a success story to tell regarding them right now and the fact that they did so well in a nearby European country bodes well for their success in France.

On to Step Two.

Developing a short summary that highlights the series will be easy in this case, as one already exists.  I put one together for the original proposal and I’m going to dig that out and use it for this proposal as well.

“In the Templar Chronicles, an action-oriented urban fantasy series, the ancient Templar Order has been resurrected as a secret combat arm of the Vatican, charged with defending mankind from supernatural threats and enemies. The world at large is unaware of the Order’s existence and the Templars take great pains to keep it that way. “Sometimes the Lord’s work is best accomplished in the shadows”, is a popular saying among the troops.

At center stage is Knight Commander Cade Williams, a veteran of the Order and a man torn between his thirst for vengeance and his need to discover what happened to him during an encounter with a supernatural entity five years before. Cade leads the famed Echo Team, a special forces-style unit that is called in only when the situation has become particularly dire. Echo is the best of the best, there is no doubt about that, but the fact that they are led by a man rumored to have more than a few unusual abilities of his own leave many within the Order more than a little uncomfortable in dealing with them.  Darkness surrounds us, even in the light of day, and the series is designed to reflect this. In the Templar world, all is not as it seems, and it is up to the Order to protect man from his own ignorance.”

My next step would be to craft a paragraph that highlights some of the success I’ve achieved with the trilogy in other markets in order to show the target publisher why they might benefit through its publication as well.

I’ll cover that in the next installment of this series…

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.

In the first part of this series I spent some time discussing the benefits that can be gained by actively pursuing foreign rights sales as a fundamental part of your career.  For the next couple of posts, I want to talk about the actual process I use to try and sell a project to a foreign publisher or to recruit a foreign agent to do so on my behalf.

The first thing you need to understand about approaching a foreign publisher or agent is that knowledge is your friend.  In fact, having the right piece of information at the right time can often mean the difference between securing a sale or not.  And the tool I use to gain much of the industry intelligence I need is the Publishers Lunch Newsletter from PublishersMarketplace.com.

Publishers Lunch is the industry’s “daily essential read,” now shared with well over 30,000 publishing people every day. Each report gathers together stories from all over the web and print of interest to the professional trade book community, along with original reporting, plus a little perspective and the occasional wisecrack added in.

Publishers Lunch comes in two different versions – a free version that you can get by signing up here or a paid version that you receive when you become a member of Publishersmarketplace.com.

Now I’ve been a member of PM for a few years and strongly believe that it is worth the $20.00 per month membership fee.  I suggest to all of my coaching clients that they try it for at least a month, as membership fees are collected on a monthly basis and you can cancel at any time.  (In fact, I think PM is so important that I am going to be doing an entire series on the site in the near future!)

When you get the paid version of the newsletter, you also get a weekly edition that is called Deal Lunch, which lists the book deals that are reported to PM every week.  (You can also view these daily on the website as part of your membership.)  Deal reports are broken down by category (Fiction, Non-Fiction, TV and Film, Foreign, etc) and be genre (Woman’s/Romance, Mystery/Crime, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, etc).  The agent and editor involved are listed, often with their email addresses, as well as an indication of the size of the deal itself.

“nice deal” $1 – $49,000
“very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000
“good deal” $100,000 – $250,000
“significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000
“major deal” $500,000 and up

Each week, I will go through the listing, looking for any deals that might be of interest.  These include deals by writers I’m familiar with, deals involving books in the genres I write in, deals in countries that I’m interested in breaking into…you get the idea.

For instance, this week I found this deal in the listings:

Foreign rights, Fiction: French rights to J.F. Lewis’s STAKED and REVAMPED, to Bragelonne, by Heather Baror at Baror International. heather@barorint.com

If I was looking to break into the French market, this would be of interest to me for several reasons.  Number one, because J.F. Lewis writes in the urban fantasy genre, as do I.  And number two, because STAKED and REVAMPED were the first two books in a series – I would also be looking to sell a series in the same genre.  So let’s pretend I was going to submit to Bragelonne.  What would I do next?

The first thing I would do would be a more research to determine if Bragelonne was worth approaching as a potential publisher for my work.

Where would I go to get more information on Bragelonne?

Publishersmarketplace would be my first stop.  One of the benefits of having a membership there is the ability to search their Deal database going back the last nine years (all the way to October of 2000.)  Even better I can target the search in a number of ways, including the name of the publisher.  Punching “Bragelonne” into the database and indicating I wanted data for the last two years would get me a list of 16 different deals.  13 of those deals were for adult fiction titles (the other three were for children’s books.)

Included in that list ware deals for Jim Butcher’s Desden novels, Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy novels, Ilona Andrew’s Magic novels, and E.E. Knight’s Vampire Earth series.  Given that my work would fit rather nicely into this group of writers, I would see this as a good sign that the publisher might have some interest in what I would have to offer.

Unfortunately, none of the deal reports list the acquiring editor’s name, so if I was going to trya dn get in touch, I would have to do a bit more research.  A quick search in the Contact database that is also a part of my membership to Publishersmarketplace would get me the following:

Name: Stephane Marsan
Category: Foreign (Editorial director)

Company: Bragelonne

Address: 35 rue de la Bienfaisance
Paris 75008, FRANCE

along with an email address and a telephone number

With this information, I would have a place to start. Noting that the information is a little out of date, I’d probably double check to be certain that Stephane was still the Editorial Director at Bragelonne before querying, just to be safe.

Next post – Using the publisher’s site to learn more (even if the whole thing is in French!)

As some of you know I’ve had some success in marketing my work to foreign publishers in Germany, Italy, Russia and Poland.  But that’s just a small drop in a very large pond.  There are a lot of excellent foreign publishers out there that I would like to work with and I’ve decided to approach several of them over the next few weeks to see what I can accomplish.

So how would I go about doing that?

That’s exactly the question this short series is going to answer.

So, in part one, let’s tackle the basic question – why foreign markets?  What do you have to gain by selling to them? 

Well, the short and simple answer is free money, which I’ll explain in just a minute, but I think there is more to it than that.  Being successfully published in a foreign market expands not only your readership, but your opportunities for future work as well.

You see, having a successful writing career is kind of like the boardgame Risk.  In Risk, the objective is to control the world.  As you conquer new territory and spread your game pieces out across the map, it makes it that much harder for your opponents to defeat you.  And even if you do lose a minor skirmish here or there, the sum total of the territory you control often makes those minor losses irrelevant in the long run.  By the end of the game, you’re the last one standing.

If foreign market sales are the equivalent of conquered territory in Risk, then the more sales you have, the better off you will be long term because one poorly received book will not destroy your career overall.  You’re too diversified for the occasional problem (and trust me, there will be problems here and there) to take you out at the knees.

Then, of course, there’s the free money.

Say I sell a book to an American publisher.  That publisher pays me a fair price for my efforts to write that book (or for the work I’ve previously done in writing it, if I’m selling a completed manuscript rather than a proposal.)  Next, I turn around and sell the same book to a European publisher, say Edizioni Mondadori in Italy. The money I receive from that sale is “free money” because I do not have to do any work to go along with the sale – the book has already been written and paid for by the American publisher.

In addition, each sale to a successive market also increases my chances of making a future sale to another market – people like to back winners and the more territories your book can be sold into, the more attractive it becomes.

I’ve also used this process in reverse – I’ve used the original foreign market sale to make a follow-up sale to an American publisher.

Now that you understand why, let’s look at the steps that I use to accomplish this process:

1. Research
2. Drafting My Query
3. Initial Contact
4. Follow Up Contacts
5. Offer and Negotiation
6. Keeping the Door Open