Licensing Audio Rights
Question: We are about to
release our first book, ScreamFree Parenting, Raising Your Kids
While Keeping Your Cool, and have an audio 4-cd set that is also
for sale. The folks at a web site have expressed interest in selling
the cd's, but the royalties they have offered us (they would reproduce
and do all of the work and just send us a check) seems incredibly low.
They also want the right to sublicense to others, which seems an
affront to me. Would you have any thoughts on working with them and/or
what would by a typical royalty to receive in this type of setup? Thank you so much for your help.
John's Answer: The sub-licensing
allows them to sell more of your CD set. Since you didn't say the
amount of the royalty they offered, I can't comment on whether it was
fair or not. The important thing is to offer then a non-exclusive
license to reproduce and sell your CD set. That allows you to license
others as well -- and to sell rights to another audio publisher at some
point. You should probably also set a time limit on the license or some
other limit that allows you to take back the license if things don't
work out well between the two of you.
Personally, I'd probably sign with with the company if the royalty were
reasonable (5 to 15%) and I didn't have a good chance to sell the
rights to a more recognized audio publisher. Any sales they make will
be the icing on the cake, since I would still be selling the CDs as
well on my own and maybe licensing it to others as well. Any sales made
by them will only increase the size of my audience for future books,
CDs, seminars, newsletters, reports, etc. Plus they would help to
create the word of mouth that helps to sell the current book and CD set to other people.
The key to rights sales is to sell to the best buyer, the one who can
get you the farthest reach. Until you find that buyer and get them to
make a commitment, you could license rights to others on a
non-exclusive and perhaps temporary basis. Whenever you grant any
rights, be sure to limit those rights as much as possible so you can
exploit other rights or license them to others. Some neophyte
publishers give away far too many rights in the beginning just because
they are happy to sell some rights. That's bad business in the long
run. Do your homework. Be sure what rights you want to grant, and then limit them in writing.
I'll be covering this whole subject more thoroughly in Chapter 17 of
the new 6th edition of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. The new
information and coverage in that alone will be worth the price of the
new edition. Coming this summer to a bookstore or web site near you. — John Kremer
Selling Film Rights: Movies Producers List
Question:
Do you have a list of movie producers who I can pitch my novel to as a movie?
The book was published by the small publisher. -- Mark Mills,
author of To Protect the Innocent
John's Answer: I have a list of producers
and production companies that have bought movie rights in the past year, but I
don't yet have addresses for most of them.
Besides, you don't pitch willy-nilly when you pitch movie rights. You target
specific producers, directors, actors, screenwriters, or production companies
depending on what they have done before and what they might be planning to do
in the future. You would never want to mass pitch a movie.
I also offer a list of agents who sell movie rights. They pitch to specific
producers and companies. That list is part of the Literary, Foreign, and
Subsidiary Rights agents file I sell for $30.00 via email.
