End of the Debate

It's been decided.  Thanks to a thoughtful choice of birthday gift from my significant other, I own a Kindle.

Welcome to the future!

It got me thinking.  If you want some background on international publishing rights and how my little Kindle will deal with them (tying in with my earlier visit to Frankfurt), look after the jump.  If you'd rather not, here's a pretty video from Nepal.


As I learned from working in India, having the rights to publish a book in one country (or, more exactly, 'territory') has no bearing on your ability to publish those books anywhere else in the world.  This is irrespective of language, so an author is able to sell the rights to his book to completely different US and UK publishers--with the result of receiving handsome sums from each. Good job, author!

Certain territories such as India, New Zealand and sometimes the European continent are often treated as open territories in which any publisher from anywhere in the world can sell their books.  This is one place where US and UK books will compete head to head.  In Frankfurt's airport, for instance, we saw three different versions of the dreaded Eat, Pray, Love by two separate publishers, sitting on the same shelf.  Regrettably, Julia Roberts was visible on each.

A smart publisher, when signing a new author, will ask to be given world rights, ebook rights, and other subsidiary rights which would then be sold again for further profits - split with the author, of course.  This is often a practical path if the company has more bargaining power than the writer, especially in sectors where agents are uncommon.  This is the raison d'etre for conferences like Frankfurt: so that publishers can meet in person to set up rights deals between their foreign counterparts.

Now, with the Kindle, that territory breakdown is changing.  For instance, what happens when I use my American Kindle and my American Amazon account to download an ebook over an internet connection in the United Kingdom?  Am I buying it from the US, or from England?  What if the ebook rights have been sold in America but not in the UK?  What if I'm in Europe?  What if - wouldn't this be nice - I'm in New Zealand?

Publishers are absolutely aware of the problem, as is Amazon, so I'm told that once the device arrives in the UK it will be able to appreciate the change of territories.  Libraries are personal property, so once a UK book is on the device it won't disappear once I re-enter the US.  Still, as everyone knows, in this internet age there are ways around these boundaries.  The best publishers will either start pushing harder for world ebook rights or else change the terms of their territories - breaking them down by language, for instance.

It's probably more information than the average reader ever wanted to know, but when you're in my line of work it's fascinating to watch this stuff become more visible.  For now, it's time to curl up with another paperback textbook before my gadget arrives and a new era begins . . .

[Update (22 October, 2010):] How topical.  The Bookseller just published this article with the headline, "Amazon Kindle's territorial controls 'easily cracked'."  That certainly answers some of my question, although not in the way I think publishers would like.