Other Subsidary Rights

What Book Rights Do We Sell Besides Foreign Rights?

Electronic Rights: These are not to be confused with the distribution of a book in electronic format (e-book). We talk about electronic rights when we license a work to another party to deliver in electronic format. We only work with a handful of providers of electronic content who have proven to us that they can generate revenue for our authors and have systems in place to prevent the illegal dissemination of your content. Berrett-Koehler may also choose to publish your book in electronic format and have it distributed by e-book resellers. The latter is not a subsidiary rights deal, since we are not licensing to another party.

Book Club Rights: with the success of online booksellers like Amazon and B&N.com who offer deep discounts to the consumer, the traditional book clubs have become less relevant. However, we still pitch book club rights to the major book club aggregate Bookspan, and other smaller special interest book clubs. These days, however, they tend to buy the book from us (as opposed to producing their own book club edition). When that is the case, it is not considered a subsidiary rights deal.

Paperback Reprint Rights: Very rarely, we will license the paperback rights of a book we have published in hardcover to another publisher. We only do that when we think it would be best for the books. In most cases, however, it works better financially (for BK and for the authors) to do the paperback edition ourselves.

UK and Commonwealth Reprint Rights: Again, we prefer to sell our own edition, since it works better financially for everyone involved. On occasion, when a book has enormous sales potential in the UK and Commonwealth and our edition has not realized that potential (because of a cover that does not work or other factors), we may choose to license reprint rights to a local publisher.

Multilevel Marketing Reprint Rights: We are often approached by multilevel marketing (MLM) companies who want to acquire the rights to reprint a book for the MLM market. These MLM editions are outside the traditional book distribution channels (bookstores and online booksellers) and do not compete in any way with the Berrett-Koehler edition, and they often help to promote our edition further. Sometimes the MLM companies prefer buying from our stock at a deep discount. If the latter happens, it is not considered a subsidiary rights deal, but a special sale. In most cases, MLM sales (whether they are subsidiary rights or not) are usually managed by our Special Sales Department.