Weekly roundup

Each week we present links to articles and blogs about digital books and export that we hope you will find useful.

Agents and rights in the spotlight at Digital Book World (Publishers Weekly)

Man Booker prize goes digital (The Digital Reader)

Vestron’s Law: Rights revert to the original publisher (Scholarly Kitchen)

Nicolas Gary on DRM (ActuaLitté)

Tricia McCraney | 01/28/2011 | Digital, Export, Rights

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O Canada, glorious to read

If you haven’t already found your way to Canadian Bookshelf and signed up for a sneak peek, get right to it! The nascent discovery platform for all things CanLit promises a browsing experience that rivals the pleasure of meandering through your favourite bookstore. At Canadian Bookshelf, you’ll find loads of great books just waiting to jump off the shelf (er, screen). 

Initiated by the ACP with the goal of making our authors and titles easier to find, the project’s ultimate plea is for Canadian books to be read, more, far and wide. The site will launch soon but until then booklovers can get a glimpse via the beta invitation, and can contribute to the book buzz by rating and recommending their favourite books.

Readers and book industry insiders are an important part of the Canadian Bookshelf community, but beyond that the platform provides useful tools for teachers and librarians including the ability to browse by theme, reading level, and curriculum linkage. Title lists can be maintained, compared and shared with other colleagues and community members.

Publishing has always been a large community made up of several smaller industries and groups – booksellers, printers, publishers, authors, agents, etc. One of the surprising and more innovative directions taken by Canadian Bookshelf is an area dedicated to showcasing titles available for film and/or TV adaptation. The ‘Books to Screen’ section will serve as a meeting place for the publishing and entertainment industries to discuss Canadian stories in relation to the big (or small) screen, and encourage the sale of rights. It’s further proof that the publishing community is getting bigger, and Canadian Bookshelf will play an exciting part in its growth.

Congratulations to the ACP, Canadian publishers and the Canadian Bookshelf team! 

Tricia McCraney | 01/20/2011 | Rights

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Translation Rights Fair – free to attend in January

A reminder to our readers of the upcoming and first-ever rights fair organized by the Canada Council for the Arts.  Applications to attend are still being accepted.  There is no cost to attend the fair, which will be held in Ottawa on January 27 and 28, 2011. 

The event is being held as part of the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, with the goal of encouraging and supporting collaboration between French-language and English-language publishers in Canada, particularly through translation and rights sales.  The fair is open to all publishers, and support for travel may be available to publishers receiving support from Canada Council Block Grants and Emerging Publisher Grants or from the Canada Book Fund.

For more information about the event, contact the Canada Council for the Arts.

Tricia McCraney | 12/22/2010 | Rights

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Livres Canada Books Mentoring: France-Switzerland-Belgium

The 2010-2011 Livres Canada Books Mentoring Program will help a group of select Canadian publishers to improve their general knowledge of export activities as well as their knowledge of the export market in France, Belgium and Switzerland in particular.

This program aims to allow eligible publishers to build and refine export strategies,  gather key contacts in the French, Belgian and Swiss markets, and to participate in the Salon du livre de Paris on March 18th and 19th, 2011.

The activities of the 2011 program include a training day covering the market in France, Belgium and Switzerland (Montreal, February 17, 2011); discussion with an international consultant to develop or improve individual publishers’ export strategies; assistance in identifying key contacts in the French, Belgian and Swiss markets and participation in the Salon du livre de Paris (18 and 19 March 2011), including a guided tour of the show to facilitate meetings with French publishers and distributors.

This program focuses on helping new and emerging book exporters increase their sales volumes so as to become eligible for Canada Book Fund support.

The Mentoring Program alternates between and English-language and a French-language market each year.  The 2010-2011 program is provided in French only. 

For more information, click here.

Tricia McCraney | 12/01/2010 | Export, Rights

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The Importance of Being Right (about Rights)

Territorial rights are valuable. You want to use them and you want protect them. Although it may seem as though the line between one territory and another blurs online, it doesn’t. Or at least, it doesn’t have to when publishers are making sure to properly support rights information in their ONIX files.

As we recently learned from Michael Tamblyn, incorrect rights information in a title’s ONIX file can cost publishers significant losses. BookNet Canada’s Meghan MacDonald reported that, in Kobo’s case, bad metadata can lead to lengthy delays and can cause up to ten days worth of missed sales. What’s worse is that incorrect or missing metadata may result in a book not being sold in a territory for which you do hold rights.

Can you afford to lose out on sales? By taking the time to include a maximum of five data elements in your ONIX file, you can avoid hassles and lost income—and protect your territorial rights. At the most basic level, all you need to do is fill out two pieces of information: choose a code to identify the type of rights held and then identify the rights country or territory that the rights apply to.  If you want to get more specific, you can also identify excluded countries or territories.  This information is communicated within the Sales Rights composite in your ONIX file.  Keep in mind that the geographical rights information you attach to an ISBN within your ONIX file only specifies where you are legally able to sell a book, and should not list the rights that are available for sale.

To take full advantage of the rights you do hold for a title make sure your ONIX file is complete.  As ebook sales continue to rise, the accuracy of your ONIX file is increasingly crucial.

The Details:

To identify the type of rights held:
Include the Sales Rights Composite in your ONIX file.
Populate PR.21.1 Sales Rights Type Code within the Sales Rights Composite.
This code can be either 01 (exclusive rights), 02 (non-exclusive rights), or 03 (not for sale) in the countries or territories that follow.

To identify the rights country or territory that the rights apply to:
Populate PR.21.2 Rights Country
If the geographical region is a country, it goes here. Country codes are outlined in ONIX Code List 91, but are always two uppercase letters. For example, CA is Canada.

PR.21.3 Rights Territory can also be used.
If the geographical region is something other than a country, it goes here. Territory codes are outlined in ONIX Code List 49, are always uppercase letters, but the length can vary. For example, CA-NS is Nova Scotia and WORLD is World.

To identify excluded countries or territories:
Include the Not For Sale Composite in your ONIX file.
This composite allows you to identify countries or territories where you do not hold rights, since it may be easier to state exclusions than to state a long list. It uses Rights Country and Rights Territory elements in the same way as above. For example, by using the Not For Sale composite, you can state that you hold World rights, excluding Australia instead of listing every country where you do hold rights.

Putting it all together:
Example:
If I wanted to say that I have exclusive rights to sell title x everywhere in the world except for Australia, it would look like this in my ONIX file:
<SalesRights>
    <SalesRightsType>01</SalesRightsType>
    <RightsTerritory>WORLD</RightsTerritory>
    <NotForSale>
        <RightsCountry>AU</RightsCountry>
    </NotForSale>
</SalesRights>

To read Meghan MacDonald’s blog post about lost sales due to bad metadata, click here.

Samantha Francis | 07/13/2010 | Digital, Export, Rights

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