Maybe I *Will* See My Book in Stores (Which Isn't Good)

I mentioned how in India I was able to work as the development editor for a new B2B Marketing textbook adaptation due to be published in October 2010.  It's finished, and it's lovely, but I had guessed I would never see it sold in person because of territorial constraints between Indian publishers and the United States.  Since my company already published a version in the US -- and since the Indian version included a red bar on the cover which very clearly stipulated the territories where it could be sold -- the belief was that it would stay on the subcontinent for life.

It was with much interest, then, that I found this article on Inside Higher Education this morning.  Remember those cheap Indian editions we made of our US textbooks, appropriately priced to a developing market?  Right now, there's a case in the Supreme Court which may bring them flooding into American bookstores, at the expense of those pricey hardback editions.  As odd at it sounds, Costco's right to resell cheaply-bought Swiss Omega watches to global consumers could send vibrations through every multinational publisher on the market.

If I'm a multinational publisher -- and right now, sadly, I'm not -- this is a difficult decision point.  Publishing wasn't built to be global, and this is one more growing pain to add to the list.  The watch debate isn't as dramatic as the glamorous rise of the ebook, but it just might bring a louder tolling of the bell.