This is probably a really bizarre question, but I'm confident someone around here will have some useful tidbit. I live in the USA but I spend time in East Asia (and will soon have dual citizenship). I was mulling around the idea, what if I published my novel in Asia instead of US first. Would this likely help or harm the chances of publishing it in the US? In order to publish in the US, would I need to make sure the Asian publishing company had a US location? Or would another publishing house likely pick it up? How does this impact copyrights? What other things am I totally looking over in this, both good and bad? Thank you, //R
what kind of book is it?... if you're self-publishing, coffee table/art books are often published in asia, as they do a great job on such stuff there, for a fraction of what a us press would charge... i don't know if the same is true for text-only books, though... if it's a novel, or any text-only book and in english, why would an asian publisher even be interested?... where would they find a market for it in asian countries?... makes no sense to me at all... am i missing something?... unless it's published in some asian language there and you offered the english version to us publishers, of course it would... and the terms of your contract with the first publisher would also have to be considered... if, for instance, there's a clause that gives them international rights, then it's up to them whether it'll be published anywhere else... and other parts of the contract would also affect what you can do with it after that... that makes no sense, if still referring to a second publisher, a us one... but if by 'to publish' you only mean to have your book sold in the us, then the asian house would only need to have us distribution capability... they couldn't, till contract with the first one runs out... unless your contract with the first publisher allows it... and that's not likely... you need to study up on that, if you want to be a published author... go to the source and go over all aspects of the subject very carefully: www.copyright.gov who'd buy your book, if published and distributed in asia?... is it translated into any asian languages?... why would you even consider going to an asian publisher?... what benefit do you think that would have for you/the book?
Basically you would just have to read through contracts quite clearly. Some contracts you will receive state the publisher owns all print and electronic rights to your work, others may say that they only require the rights to their spoken language, example, a US publisher may say, that they require all the English rights, electronic and print to your work, but not the rights to the piece in other languages. As far as I know, if you are going to try and sell a piece to another country, you are best off mentioning this to the publisher it has been published/accepted with just to make sure you are not in violation of your contract. It all really does come down to your contract. Good luck. Getting your work published in more than one country can prove difficult, but it can also be very rewarding. My partner has three of his stories coming out in the US and Germany, which is very exciting.
Thanks for bringing this up. I'm also curious about the technicalities because I plan to go to Korea in a few years.
