Re: How come it's that way?
Posted by:
poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: May 10, 2003 11:15AM
Hiya Snarky - welcome to the fforum.
I've been thinking about the whole publishing thing, and there's a few factors that affect it. One of them is exactly the same reason that America gets Hollywood films first - Jasper was picked up by a British publishing house and so they get released here first. Carla would know better than me, but I'm pretty sure that the UK publishing industry is bigger than the American one in terms of the number of titles, so I'd guess this happens more often than the other way round (we tend to get American authors after you too). The best way to see the same process is with music - we get your stuff after you and you get our stuff, er, well you don't buy our stuff at all in fact. (and while we're on it could you please cease and desist from the following: Linkin Park, Nickleback, Busted, Staines, Shania Twain, Cher, Madonna...)
Another reason is that the publishing rights tend to be sold to several publishers for several markets. In America Mr Ff is published by Penguin, if I'm not greatly mistaken, whereas over here it's Hodder & Stoughton. The logic behind this is that authors can flog their book once for their home market, and then when it's succesful they can flog it again with a nice big bidding war. It's the sort of thing that makes agents rub their hands. Another advantage of this is that publishers tend to know their own markets and can use better strategies. Some publishers don't have overseas divisions, too.
The third reason I can think of off the top of my head is basically the same as Carla's. It took years for any of Mr ff's stuff to be picked up even over here, and the books are defiantly British. I suspect that it would have been hard to sell the American rights of an unknown author who had been rejected so many times. Once they started to sell, it became easier to persuade someone to take it up. You'll probably also find that lots of people who worked for publishing companies (and lets face it - the Thursday Next books are written for people who like books) started talking about it - which helps sell the rights too. As the books are quite 'British' there may have been some reticence to take the risk either. Once you have a gap like that it may be kept to keep people waiting for the next installment - especially if they come on here and keep hearing about it from people who already have it!
If there's an editing delay then I can't see why that might be, unless some of the names are changed (a la Asterix) but AAC is the best person to ask about any changes like that.
PSD
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