Industry analyst Mike Shatzkin recently argued that, to earn more money, Big Five publishers will become increasingly focused on setting up systems that allow them to publish in multiple languages and countries—rather than selling rights to other publishers, or allowing those rights to remain with the author. Shatzkin pointed to recent initiatives by HarperCollins and Holtzbrinck to prove his point.
There’s a problem, however. For most agented authors, publishers aren’t getting world English rights. Also, Shatzkin had to add a postscript when he was advised that some of the Big Five are structured in such a way to eliminate the chance of coordinated global publishing (at least any time soon). Being bigger doesn’t necessarily make things easier, and in fact it’s the smaller houses that may be more well positioned to execute such a plan. (Think Bloomsbury and Quarto.) But the effort required for global coordinated publishing makes the most sense for the biggest bestselling authors—the type of author rarely found at the smaller houses.
Agent response (via Twitter) expressed skepticism about Shatzkin’s view. Ginger Clark wrote, “You left out the fact that if the author is the one selling the rights to a foreign publisher, they have more close interaction with the editor, the translator, and the readers. And most authors highly value interacting directly with fans. When a US publisher controls translation rights, the ‘author’ the foreign publishers interact with is the US corporation.”
But would the situation improve if there were no foreign publisher, if it were the same company publishing all foreign editions? Clark doesn’t think so—it may in fact give even more reason for the foreign division to ignore the author and prioritize communication with the US division. Agent Michael Bourret said, “I’d also argue that, while publishers love synergy, I haven’t found it nearly as effective as they claim. I remain unconvinced by synergy and global publication strategy.”
Bottom line: Of the Big Five, HarperCollins and Macmillan are well-positioned to do this in the near future, assuming they have the rights, but not necessarily the other three.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
