The English Language Publishing World: Author's and online English tutor viewpoints
Why is the world split up into publication regions? What caused this to happen?
The London/New York axis is the main division point for English language publishing worldwide. English book publishing began as a family business in the UK, particularly in London, and was exported throughout the colonies by British publishers.
This was altered by the Second Globe War, but a new status quo emerged following the war when Stanley Unwin, a British publisher, headed a British delegation that bargained with American publishers to come to an agreement on a divide of the English-speaking world.
Because the British Commonwealth was still a powerful political and practical reality at the time, the British ended up with the majority of the major English-speaking nations, including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore, while the US only received the US and the Philippines.
The UK publishers were able to assert that their export markets were far more important to them than American publishers' export markets at the time because this divide accurately depicted how books were delivered to different nations.
Increase in language popularity due to online English tutoring
The rest of the globe was treated as a "open market," so if you're wondering what happened to it, this is the explanation. This meant that the English language versions of a book published by both a British and an American publisher may be sold in the same nation, often at competitive prices. It may appear cozy in hindsight, but at the time, no one was really concerned about the free market because English wasn't yet widely learned or established as the universal language. It was also before the advent of digital technology. The market for English language instruction boomed a few years ago. The number of students who wish to learn English as well as the number of English teachers both increase yearly. Online English tutoring is becoming more and more popular.
The right to translate and publish a book in a different language is a subsidiary right that has been covered individually (see Subsidiary Rights). The publisher that has bought these rights and arranged for the translation will only have rights in the translated version, so that publisher will treat it like any other book.
Growth of Publishing in the English Language
The "British publishers traditional market" list, often referred to as the "schedule of territories," which was included in book contracts, served as the official documentation of the agreement to split up the English-speaking globe. However, when American publishers grew more interested in selling their novels abroad due to easy land access, Canada began to be recognized as a potential market for American authors. The majority of contracts now grant the US publisher Canadian rights, or they are sold straight to a Canadian publisher. As governments in the former British colonies began to believe that they should support their own publishers, strong political backing for Canadian publishers grew through time and has persisted to the day, despite what some would claim.
The rapid expansion of Australian publishing coincided with the rise in national trust in Australia. It is still controlled by local subsidiaries of major worldwide corporations, but these subsidiaries now behave and feel much more like Australian publishers, publishing books for their own market and exporting them to other countries. Similar developments have occurred, albeit on a smaller scale, in New Zealand, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
There were attempts a few years ago to make Europe a closed market for either the British or the American publisher due to the fast expanding importance of the European English-as-a-second-language market. British publishers continue to support this position on the grounds that the Treaty of Rome otherwise grants US publishers unrestricted access to the UK market since it upholds the principle of free trade among EU member states.
Exactly who is the author?
But where does the author stand in regard to all this organised division of the universe, you might be wondering. What's best for the author, and how much power does the author have over who distributes their work where?
The contracts with the author state that the gift of territories is granted, therefore technically, the author is in agreement with the split. However, agents and publishers have their own opinions on the matter that are based on "custom and practice." Despite conglomerates' efforts to purchase world rights, or at least so-called "world English language" rights, the majority of novels are still sold to various publishers in the US and UK, occasionally with a separate publisher in Australia as well.
When it comes to selling their rights, authors should follow their agents' counsel. Twenty years before the issue of female trafficking and sexual exploitation in the United States came of age, my first book, Female Sexual Slavery (1979), which has been translated into several languages and is still in print in English, gave me the impetus to become an international activist on the subject. However, it is generally believed that an Australian publisher, for example, would put forth more effort on behalf of a book that it is publishing in Australia as opposed to one that it is merely distributing for a British or American publisher. With a separate Australian publisher, the author will thus benefit more.