BFLA Open Week: Tax Forms

Written by Tabitha Topping

For any author it’s obviously incredibly exciting when a translation rights deal is done, however there is an aspect of these sort of deals that is rarely discussed… tax forms.

For the uninitiated, many countries have double taxation agreements with one another which means if a resident of one country is expecting income from another and they have the relevant documentation, they can avoid paying tax twice. Sounds simple, right? You’d be surprised…

At the beginning of each calendar year we have to assess which of our clients are most likely to receive translation rights income and from where. Are we in the middle of negotiating a Spanish deal for Author A? Has Author B been selling well in France, and are we expecting a sizeable royalty payment for them? Often it can be difficult to predict, but once we have a list (and obviously this list is not comprehensive – for example, we often make translation rights deals later in the year we were not expecting to in January), we can then send the relevant instructions to the relevant clients.

These differ from country to country. Some countries have specific forms that need to be filled out by the author and then stamped by their tax authority, while a simple certificate of residence will suffice for others.

We always advise that authors apply for tax forms as soon as they can. It can take months for tax forms to be returned to clients and publishers cannot make payment without them. Furthermore, tax forms may only be used for the year they are issued (Germany is the sole exception to this) so if an author’s form only arrives in November and misses the publisher’s last pay run of the year, the author will have to start the process all over again in January. This often means that large swathes of income is held up, which can be enormously frustrating for publishers and authors alike.

As an agency we are legally not allowed to complete tax forms on behalf of our clients, so our role is to mediate between client and publisher/co-agent. We share the relevant documentation with our clients and then send periodic reminders to them about completing the forms in good time.

Authors are obviously free to go without the tax forms and subject their income to the full withholding tax (and sometimes a tax form only reduces the tax by such a negligible amount it’s not worth going through the whole arduous process), but given the squeezing of author incomes in recent years we usually recommend that authors apply for tax forms.

So, in essence tax forms are great! They allow authors to keep more of their advance and/or royalties, which usually means that an author can afford to write more – yay! Unfortunately the tax forms process is labor-intensive and time consuming… but as agents we will be there for every step of the journey and do our best to make the process as easy and pain-free as we can. So, if you’re an author and receive an email saying ‘it’s time to apply for your [insert country]’s tax forms’, please don’t panic!

BFLA Open Week: Translation Rights – Beginnings

Written by James Pusey and Nicole Etherington

So, you’ve hooked an agent, and said agent has just submitted your debut novel to UK and US editors. At what stage does the translation rights department get involved, and in what capacity?

First off, it’s likely that the TR department will have been one of the early readers of your novel – we’re often asked to assess new manuscripts that an agent is about to send out in the UK, in order to offer an opinion about its potential for translation. We’d be looking for comparable titles that have seen success abroad and discussing amongst ourselves as to who we might target, and which markets seem likeliest. Each market has its own trends, periods of boom and bust, but there’s also a diversity of tastes within each one.

If we have a very strong feeling that the novel would be up a particular editor’s street, we might send it to them early, before a UK/US deal has been struck. The reality, however, is that the wheels of acquisition often turn slower than we’d like, and to give the novel the very best chances of success we’ll need some help.

By sharing your manuscript with trusted book scouts and our co-agents (our eyes and ears on the ground in capital cities around the world), we can ensure that the novel is considered by a range of the right editors. Co-operating with third parties in this way offers the novel greater visibility and gets people talking. Publishing remains a ‘people’ industry and fostering positive relationships with these contacts is priceless.

Timing is everything and it’s often the case that we won’t achieve proper lift-off in translation until the book has been sold in the UK. Given the vast amount of time, effort and expense that editing, translating and production entails, it’s important that overseas editors have access to copy-edited and proofread manuscripts, possibly cover art and design, and the boost that UK publication and its attendant publicity can give. This is not to say that it’s impossible to sell a title abroad that doesn’t already have a UK publisher, but it’s the exception that proves the rule.

The greatest joy, and biggest challenge, of our work in rights comes from successfully matching up a book with its perfect overseas editor. The first translation deal we make for a book is always a cause of excitemen, and can have a knock-on effect in other markets.

These are the beginnings, then, but, in fact, our engagement with the novel doesn’t end at this stage, or indeed at all. First publication, second (paperback) publication, reviews, prize listings, strong sales figures in the UK or elsewhere, all provide the opportunity for us to continue attempting to place the novel with suitable overseas partners, giving your novel a second, third, or hopefully twentieth life!

BFLA Open Week: Media Rights – How a Book gets Optioned

Written by Anna Myrmus

Getting your book optioned (and hopefully produced) as a film or television series can often be a process which, from the outside, seems shrouded in mystery, but there are a few key things to note.

Firstly, whether or not your book gets optioned is not always predictable from a publishing perspective. This is partly because film and television trends are often in stark contrast to publishing trends. So, while your book may have been written and edited taking into account the current hits on BookTok and in Waterstone’s, those often do not match up with what’s big on screen. Take, for example, romantasy: while it has had a huge boom in publishing, very few books except the top global bestsellers, who can guarantee a very large audience, will break through into television. 

So, how does the process work? Firstly, Book to Film agents, who are meeting with producers all the time, will assess the screen potential of a book and decide whether to actively submit it widely. To do this, they read the book, and, if they can see screen potential, write a submission letter. This letter is much like the one a book agent writes for publishers; it summarises and sells the book, often comparing it to other recent series or films. Then they’ll compile a list of producers who could be interested, based on recent meetings and market research, before sending it out.

There isn’t always a direct correlation between submitting a book widely and the book being optioned, however. Often a producer who options a book comes directly to the agent and there are several things which can trigger this. It could be a review; for example, we may submit a novel widely for months and get no interest, but then an amazing review in the New York Times pops up and multiple producers read it and now want to option the book. Or, maybe it suddenly becomes a bestseller. But even these moments don’t necessarily mean a book will get optioned; sometimes an obscure book can find its way into the lap of a filmmaker and become a passion project, through no graft on the part of the Book to Film agent. Though none of the above means that a Book to Film agent simply sits and waits for offers to come in.

Another key player in the optioning process is the book scout. A book scout gathers information for their clients (film and television producers). They aim to be across everything that’s happening in publishing, feeding their clients summaries and reports on books that might interest them. So, when submitting to producers, Book to Film agents will also submit to scouts, who will read and assess for their clients. Often one good assessment or recommendation from a scout, can lead to interest from one or two producers.

Once you have interest from one or more producers, the Book to Film agent will ask them for their creative proposal; how they see the adaptation, what kind of writer they would get to adapt it, which channels or platforms they imagine it on, and why they love the book etc. We then feed this proposal back to the author, and, if they want to, set up a meeting between them and the producer, so they can hear more and get a feel for them. If there are multiple producers interested, this can also be a way for the author to decide for or against a producer (for example, if they really don’t gel with the producer as a person). 

We then usually ask all producers interested to make a financial offer. If there is only one producer interested, however, we may ask them to make their offer financial from the outset, in order not to waste an author’s time.  Sometimes, if it’s a very small company interested in a book, we will let them know our minimum expectation, so that we don’t waste time on a lowball offer that we simply could never accept.

It’s at this point that negotiations begin. If there are multiple offers, we may ask all parties to improve their offers, sometimes all on different points, so that, in an ideal world, the author is only deciding on an editorial basis. However, this isn’t always the case, and an author may end up having to choose between a team they really want to work with and a bigger wad of cash. Once the author makes their choice, an agreement is negotiated by the Book to Film agent (which can take months) and a contract is finally signed. 

But what does it being optioned actually mean? Well, the company now has the exclusive right to buy the relevant rights in the book. So, they haven’t actually bought the book, but they’ve bought themselves a window to buy it. Within that window, they may attach a screenwriter and see if they can secure a broadcaster or financier, and then, if all goes well, buy the book. This option can also be extended multiple times so that the producer can buy themselves more time to put together their adaptation or present to buyers. If, in the end, they don’t exercise the option i.e. buy the rights, the author is free to get it optioned elsewhere, and the process starts all over again.

BFLA Open Week: Working on edits with your Agent

Written by Kate Burke

Every agent – and agency – is different and, ultimately, who you sign with has to be someone you click on a personal and professional level, and who you think will do the best by your writing and your career. Some agents work very closely editorially with clients and some don’t, but I’m not here to judge anyone! All I can say is that, as a former editor with a decade of experience working for several publishers, I do a lot of editorial work with my clients, particularly with debut writers, but this process can continue beyond that. This means working closely with them on several drafts of their novels before submitting them to publishers, helping them to shape outlines for future projects as well as brainstorming titles and pitch lines, and these are processes I really enjoy!

Whatever their style or experience, an agent should be hands on and work closely with you on your work. I remember what it was like, as an editor, to receive a submission from an agent – if it was a messy manuscript (both in terms of spelling and grammar, but also plot, character and pace), I could just tell that the agent hadn’t really worked on it and that really bothered me. Why hadn’t they taken the time to nurture and guide this writer? An agent should be your biggest advocate and what better way to present your work than to polish it and polish it until it’s editor-ready?

An example of working with a debut writer: once we’ve agreed that I’ll represent them, I will read their manuscript again and mark it up on screen with tracked changes. These changes could be comments about what I love or what’s working great along with all the things that might need a tweak or a bigger fix. In my email to that client, I will send them the marked-up Word document along with a summary of my main editorial concerns (these could be plot, pace, a certain character, some dialogue that doesn’t work, a scene that needs expanding etc) and then, once the author has processed my comments, we’ll have a call, Zoom or meeting to discuss tackling them and a timeframe for that. And the process continues until we’ve polished the manuscript enough that I think it’s ready for editors’ eyes! I will always do a final proofread on a manuscript before hitting the send button as I want the novel/proposal/outline to be as readable and polished as it can be.

While this sometimes rigorous (!) process might put the odd writer off, most writers who approach me for representation mention this close editorial eye and relationship as a positive, something they would like in an agent and I think it’s a vital part of developing a solid working relationship together. Agents have to sell projects with passion and, if we’ve worked for some time on a book, and we know it inside out, then we can do our best by that project. And the editorial work doesn’t stop with us – once you have an editor on board they will, most likely, ask you to do further edits on your book so I, personally, think it's best to be used to this process already so there are no curveballs further down the line!

BFLA Open Week: So, What’s Going On In The World of Publishing?

5 Key Trends for 2024 and beyond

Written by Finlay Charlesworth

1.   Who Has the Power in Publishing?

Well, before we get into what’s new in publishing, it’s worth remembering that some things seem to always stay the same – and the list of power players of UK publishing is certainly one of them.

The Top 20 UK publishers by revenue remain dominated by the ‘Big Four’: Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan. One of the big stories of 2022 was PRH’s attempt to consolidate further by buying Simon & Schuster being blocked by the US courts – still very much ‘watch this space’ story, with Simon & Schuster now owned by private equity firm KKR, expanding rapidly in the US, and perhaps poised to challenge the UK’s Big Four in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the Independent Alliance – not a single publisher, but a collective of eighteen from across the UK, founded by Faber & Faber – continue to grow rapidly year-on-year, sharing expertise and a distribution network to gain leverage and influence in UK publishing.

2.   Britain vs the World: the Export Race

Did you know that more than half of the UK publishing industry’s income comes from selling books abroad?

Not only that, but the export market for British publishers is growing twice as fast as the British publishing industry as a whole. This is partly down to finding new markets to sell into – such as Mexico, where sales increased by 328% in a single year – and partly down to publishers pushing more into existing markets, most notably the USA and Europe.

Is it all good news though?

Agents, authors and foreign publishers are often wary of British publisher’s attempts to drive sales of their English-language books abroad: export editions usually pay a lower royalty rate to authors, and the wide availability of an English-language edition can impact opportunities for authors and foreign publishers to translate the work into new languages.

3.   Romantasy Came from Nowhere – or Did It?

Barely more than eighteen months ago, there was hardly a reader in the world using the word ‘romantasy’ online.

What a difference just a couple of years can make – from a quick scroll on TikTok to the top of the Bestseller Charts, romantasy has become an unstoppable juggernaut. Combining fantasy and romance is hardly a new phenomenon (not that it was the first, but it’s worth pointing out that TWILIGHT is going to turn twenty next year!), but the new term romantasy has helped to unite a vibrant, diverse and creative collective of readers.

In response, publishers have found new ways to reach those readers: most notably through partnerships with Subscription Boxes, which have been a huge hit amongst romantasy readers in particular, providing beautiful and curated book packages – and rocketing books to the top of the charts while still being sold at (or even above) their recommended retail price: a far cry from the ‘race to the bottom’ seen in recent years, where rival retailers discount books as much as they can to compete with Amazon.

It’s certainly not hard to see why it feels like almost every editor wants a romantasy book on their list!

4.   BookTok Is Here to Stay – or is it?

For years, “the app formerly known as Twitter” was at the heart of the book community online, and while its still the go-to for many publishers and agents, it is clear that TikTok, the new kid on the (tik)block is going from strength to strength.

To date, there have been over 34 million posts tagged with #BookTok, garnering billions of views between them and having a profound effect on the bestseller lists. What was most exciting about the early impact of BookTok was how unpredictable it could be, amplifying books from across the genre spectrum and looking beyond the latest, most-hyped new releases, plucking authors like Coleen Hoover and Adam Silvera out of obscurity, years after their books had first been publishing, and helping them go from selling thousands to millions of copies almost overnight.

However, it does look like publishers are starting to get savvier at using it as a platform for their new books, through a mix of acquiring books targeted at BookTok users and getting their books in the hands of the right influencers early, with new releases like Rebecca Yarros’ FOURTH WING, Gabrielle Zevin’s TOMORROW & TOMORROW & TOMORROW and Emily Henry’s FUNNY STORY quickly gaining traction on the app.

Will this frontlist-first approach dull the allure and spontaneity of BookTok though? And could the ongoing US legal challenge to TikTok’s ownership make it all disappear overnight?

5.   The World of Audiobooks Has Turned Upside Down

And, finally, one of the great mysteries of the publishing world: what is going on in the world of audiobooks?

What we do know for certain is that over the past five years, audiobooks have been at the forefront of growth in UK publishing, consistently growing year on year far faster than print books – just last year, downloads rose by a staggering 17%. This year will further benefit from the boost of Spotify’s dive into the world of audiobooks, which began last October by offering Premium subscribers fifteen hours of audiobooks a month on top of their pre-existing music streaming service – creating for the first time a serious challenge to Amazon-owned Audible’s dominance in the digital audiobook market.

However, a lack of clarity over the terms of Spotify’s royalty payments has been widely criticized, including by the Society of Authors, and there new fears that the addition of audiobooks to Spotify may not only offer a poor return for authors, but dilute musicians’ earnings too. The full effect of Spotify’s intervention in the market, and its fallout, may yet take time to reveal itself.

With audiobooks more available than ever before though – whether through the retail outlets, streaming services, or the increasingly popular apps offered by libraries to access eBooks and audiobooks for free such as BorrowBox and Libby by Overdrive – and production quality on the rise, the potential of audiobooks remains massive and a brilliant boost to authors and readers.