Anyone have any experience of selling your work abroad without an agent? Is it just a matter of approaching publishers direct (presumably their rights divisions), or is there some other element to the mystery?

I currently have one non-fiction book with worldwide licenses in most places except the states. However after some successful online viral campaigns I'm now getting US buyers coming through the UK amazon site and would like to capitalize on this.

Thanks for your help!

It depends on what the existing situation is I think - have you sold world rights to a UK publisher? If so, they should be pushing your book abroad via their rights department. In some circumstances they may be able to sell their own edition in the US if there is no US publisher and no prospect of getting one.

ah, sorry I've just re-read your post and I think I understand now, you sold rights to your UK publisher for world ex USA - is that right? Presumably that was back when you had an agent?

If that's the case, then I guess one solution would be to go back to your UK publisher and see if they would like to take on full world rights - if they've done a good job of selling rights within the territories they do have.

Or you might prefer to do it yourself but I'm guessing it involve quite a lot of research and expense unless you have contacts over there, so it might be easier to take advantage of your publisher's rights dept and their contacts - always assuming you're satisfied with the job they've done so far.

Hi,

No. Rights sold are English language to everywhere but the States and Philippines, with two translation rights sold. I'm interested in pitching it myself in the States. The publisher has a US arm, but they don't necessarily talk to each other. Their UK English edition is already selling in the States via Amazon UK primarily due to my viral work.

So what I'm looking for is advice from writers who have successfully pitched their own work and gained commissions abroad.

Thanks.

Ahh - ok. In that case I can't help and I will step aside in case there's anyone out there who can.

It's more usual for unagented writers to sell world rights, because the publisher has access to international rights fairs etc etc.

Anyway, very good luck! Hope someone will be along with more advice.

Have you considered approaching a UK agent, telling them about your US sales on Amazon UK, and ask them to negotiate the foreign rights for you?

<Added>

Conversly, you could go to a book fair and approact the foreign publishers directly.
Or, put it out as a self-published ebook via Amazon.com's Createspace. - Onw thing to be aware of though, is the potential difficulty in getting money from a US account to a UK account, and various tax issues.

Is it just a matter of approaching publishers direct (presumably their rights divisions),

Shooter just to add one thing, I don't know about all countries, but certainly here rights departments SELL books, they don't buy them.

Editors buy books. So you would approach the commissioning editor for the imprint. I'm no expert on the US system but I'm pretty sure it'll be roughly the same.

Might be worth posting on a US forum like absolutewrite for specific advice though, just in case the system is different over there.

Thanks for all your great responses, will look into this in more depth and tell you what I find (and how I get on).

DWS has some good posts on both selling your licenses yourself and indie licensing/selling:
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing. Your Agent Sells Your Book Overseas.
Think Like a Publisher #7… A Sales Plan

Enjoy!