Fears raised again over Brexit's European rights impact

Publishers and agents are split on whether Brexit is making a material difference to the battle for European rights, with some claiming it is now a major issue and could cost UK firms business.

In the years running up to Britain leaving the EU there were repeated warnings US publishers could stage a land grab for European English language rights, often considered an exclusive market for UK presses.

Carcanet founder Michael Schmidt said he had noticed a marked difference in contracts he had been receiving lately when dealing with US publishers and he was unsure how it could be overcome.

He told The Bookseller: “Up until now Europe has been an extension of the UK copyright market and at the moment it still is but I realised with some of the new contracts I'm receiving from American publishers that [they are specifying] UK and Commonwealth but Europe is now an open market. It's going to affect us in the longer term. I'm not sure how to counter it except by having very good sales penetration and also better prices but we'll see how that goes.”

He added: “What worries me is the future of the publishing contract when we acquire rights in books published in English elsewhere in the world, or when indeed we sell rights out. UK and Commonwealth, often excluding Canada, remains the UK publisher's exclusive territory, but Europe is open, which means competition via price and discount in the EU.

“The other question that might trouble us is whether agreements made when the UK was part of the EU, regarding territories, might be opened up since the original political/commercial reality has altered. These changes could put at risk a number of future projects and might affect existing agreements at the time of their renewal.”

Clare Alexander at literary agency Aitken Alexander agreed it was becoming more of an issue with some American publishers and it needed to be “carefully handled”.

She explained: “It is very hard to defend exclusive European rights for the UK publisher now that we are no longer part of the EU. British publishers offer better export royalties and indeed most pay a home royalty on EU sales, so agents will want to retain European English language rights for them where we can.

“However, where a sale of US or North American rights is possible, we cannot ignore the fact that the advance is usually significantly higher than for the UK rights and so we need to ensure American publishers don’t walk away.

“Clearly this is going to be an issue that needs to be carefully handled over coming months until we arrive at a generally accepted new ‘normal’ — which may not be the same for all publishing groups.”

Agent Lorella Belli agreed it was becoming harder to defend European exclusive rights for publishers, though it depended on the author and their track record.

She said: “This has been happening especially when the US deal came before the UK one, and the US publisher insists on having Europe as an open market. In my opinion it’s going to be harder to retain exclusivity going forward as the British publishers’ main argument — free circulation of goods in the single market — no longer applies in practice. Despite what the government keeps saying, from what we can see, it’s a fact that dealing with Europe it’s going to be more expensive for good.

“So unless it’s a well-established author who can dictate their own terms in a way, it will be much more difficult to do so. Of course one could sell to a British publisher and grant them exclusive EU rights, but this would make it then more difficult to sell US rights. So it’s a matter of weighing the pros and cons, and for the majority of authors, jeopardising a US deal on this point is probably not a risk worth taking.”

However, a number of other figures are unconvinced that much has changed. Juliet Mabey, publisher at Oneworld, said her firm often got exclusive European rights from UK agents but “almost never” from US agencies or publishers. However, this was the case long before Brexit, she said.

Mabey added: “We would love to keep Europe exclusive, as it inevitably cuts down the incidences of the US edition being featured online in the UK, but we can only buy the rights on the table at the time.”

Denise Bates, group publisher at Octopus, said: “In my experience it’s too early to pronounce on this yet – we’ve not yet seen enough deals play out. Meanwhile we are certainly having to cope with increased post-Brexit logistical problems with freight and printing in Europe.”

At Curtis Brown, Gordon Wise said the issue was a commercial one rather than about jurisdictions. He explained: “If a UK publisher will pay a ‘home’ market level of royalties in Europe, then we are happy to grant them European rights exclusively, and in my view UK distributors are best placed to service European markets and there should be little incentive for a US publisher to be granted European rights. If the UK publisher won’t pay home rates, then the default is non-exclusive, as we have always done.

“The risk was the other way round in the old days; if the US could get into Europe they could theoretically get into the UK. With no single market now that shouldn’t happen, but if there is an exclusive European licence in place then those rights are with the Europe-wide licence-holder, even if they are British.

“If the book has started life in the US of course, then non-exclusive rights are highly likely already to have been granted to a US publisher.”

Stefan Tobler, publisher at And Other Stories, also denied the issue had anything to do with Brexit, saying: “While it's nice to blame Brexit for everything, the idea that Brexit means no exclusive European rights is cock-and-bull. If the proprietors want to give exclusive rights in any territory, they can. And I'm confident supply to Europe will not be an issue.

“This wrangling sounds like the usual push and pull of UK/US publishers over rights. Perfect cue, of course, for me to wade in with my own presumptuous and arrogant opinion and say that every publisher should do what we at And Other Stories do: buy world English and publish properly on both sides of the Atlantic.”