• Meet the Department

“We Got the Rights Stuff!”: Meet the Subsidiary Rights Department | January 27, 2016

by Amalia Frick (Penguin Young Readers)

In this new feature, we’ll be taking a look at the perhaps overlooked or enigmatic departments within a publishing house. First up is an insiders’ guide to Penguin Young Readers’ Subsidiary Rights department!

I definitely know what Subrights does, but what does Subrights do?
Subrights departments operate differently between the houses, but overall they’re charged with exercising rights beyond the traditional formats published. The publisher will usually publish a hardcover original, a trade paperback, an eBook, and possibly a board book and/ or an audio book, to be sold primarily in English in the USA (and maybe Canada). Subrights negotiates licenses for the other rights as agreed upon with the agent and author in the contract.

What are all these rights you’re talking about?
Rights usually fall into two categories: Domestic and Foreign (or translation). Big players in Domestic rights are book clubs, like Scholastic, Junior Library Guild, and Bookspan. Thorndike publishes large print books. Recorded Books and Dreamscape are Audio publishers, and Subrights might license to them if the house is not creating an audio edition. First and Second serial (bigger in the adult publishing world), are also sales that Subrights would negotiate. In foreign countries, the Subrights department can sell any right that has been contractually granted, according to language and territory.

How do you find publishers abroad?
Each publisher has an established list of agencies that represent their books to publishers in a given country. So rather than trying to pitch publishers the world over, Subrights departments will work with an agency that knows the territory, the market, and the language, to find a publisher that will best suit a book. The sub-agent or co-agent will act as an intermediary between the Subrights department and a foreign editor or publisher to negotiate terms and draw up a contract for a book to be published in that language. There are also two major book fairs each year: Bologna in the spring, and Frankfurt in the fall. The London Book Fair, also in the spring, has been gaining popularity recently as well. These are opportunities for Subrights teams to meet face-to-face with co-agents and foreign publishers, and develop a better understanding of their wish list.

How is Subrights different from International Sales?
Subrights sells rights, or grants licenses, to publishers to create their own edition in their own language. International Sales sells copies of the original publisher’s edition to an international market.

What’s the one thing everyone should know about Subrights?
It often sounds like Subrights is similar to the Contracts department, but the role is actually the most similar to Sales. Subrights will pitch an entire season (or more) of books to foreign publishers and book clubs. The job is to convince other publishers to invest, and put the time and energy into translating, editing, designing, marketing, and selling their own edition. It can be very hard, but it can also be very rewarding. If there’s high interest, a subrights deal can balance a P&L with one deal, because the revenue is a straight split between the author and the publisher, unlike selling copies from a retailer.

What’s a specific challenge of working in Subrights?
Foreign markets go up and down, and it can be a challenge to keep track of it all! We’ve more recently come into a pattern in the UK where they’re extremely limited in what they’ll take, and will only license books that they think are the best of the best. But authors still want a UK publisher because it used to be such a big market, and it can be hard to manage those expectations. Also, there are some stories that just won’t sell abroad, like an adorable book about raccoons, because raccoons are a “New World” animal.

What’s the best thing about working in Subrights?
Subrights works closely with other departments, from Editorial to Managing Ed to Production, to Marketing and Publicity. It’s a great chance to understand the business of publishing, and develop relationships with publishers all over the world. My favorite thing is seeing foreign editions that come in. Sometimes they’re completely redesigned, with different alphabets and different target audiences.