Episode 19: Unraveling Foreign Rights in Publishing with Agent Marleen Seegers

Welcome to season 2 of The Entertainment Business Podcast. I'm your host, Tisha Morris. Join me as we go into the business of entertainment, publishing, music, and all things creative. We'll get inspirational interviews, informative trends, and practical tips. And with that, let's get on with the show. Hello and welcome to the podcast. This is Tisha Morris, your host. And I'm really excited about today's episode because we're gonna be talking about something that doesn't get talked about that much, and that's foreign rights in publishing. Okay. So I have as my guest one of the preeminent foreign rights agents, and we're gonna be going behind the curtain to see how this part of publishing works. My guest travels all over the world selling, pitching books to other countries. And foreign books to the United States. And we're gonna find out how this all happens. So without further ado, let me introduce to you our, our guest Marleen Segers. Marleen is the owner and co-founder of 2 Seas Agency. Born and raised in the Netherlands, she holds a degree in liberal arts from Utrecht University and a postgraduate degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris. After working for almost a decade in the French publishing industry, she relocated to Ojai, California, where she founded 2 Seas Agency. Marlene represents international publication rights for publishing houses, literary agencies, and a select number of authors from around the world. Over the course of her career, Marlene has attended book fairs across Europe, China, Brazil, and Mexico, and has participated in international publishing fellowships across the world. Tisha— today she joins us on the podcast to share her wisdom and knowledge and expertise in the world of foreign rights. Welcome, Marlene.

Thank you, Tisha. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. So I have been excited to have you on the podcast because foreign rights is one of those subsidiary rights. We're already gonna get in the weeds with terminology. Mm-hmm. That is a little, for lack of better words, foreign to a lot of people. Right. Even someone like myself who's been in publishing for a long time, it seems like the one subsidiary right, I can't, I, it's kind of just feels like It's behind some curtain that I don't know about, which I'm sure is just like a big ocean.

That's, that's, that's—

but I wanted to bring you on and ask you questions because I'm sure so many other people have questions about foreign rights as well. So I wanted to start out, just kind of give a background. And my question is, how do you become a foreign rights agency? And I'm hoping that in my question, in your answer, you will give us how you got into it as well.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways of arriving where I'm at now. So I think I'd better, it's better to start out with my story and then kind of go from there. So I ended up doing a postgraduate degree in Paris, as you mentioned in the intro, and then I realized that I wasn't made for academia and I had always loved books and I'd always had this kind of plan B to work in publishing without really knowing anything about publishing. And at some point, one of my fellow students told me, well, there is this publishing house in, well, in Paris where I was living and studying who are always looking for interns. So I applied and they made me realize that I was better off working for, in the foreign rights department of a publishing house and I didn't even know what rights meant in, you know, obviously I know what, you know, rights, civil rights, it's my right, but I had no idea what rights and publishing, how that combination worked. But they told me that that was a better fit for me because I was foreign, because I spoke a couple of languages. And yeah, I, as soon as I entered the world of foreign rights, I just knew that this was it because it's like, it's a combination of, you know, you need to read the books that you represent. You need to talk about them. You need to travel to talk about them to people from around the world, try and understand what every different culture, every different corner of the world is kind of looking for, what works well in which countries. And yeah, you meet some of the nicest people from around the world. So I, um, so I just, I, I absolutely loved it. So I worked for this French publishing company for, as I said, a bit over 5 years, and I really got to travel the world, and that also led me to living in California because I met my husband on one of those trips. And of course, the publishing world in the US, especially back then, was very, very New York-focused, and so living in a small town in California was not really, like, it wasn't really an obvious thing to start out in or to work for a publishing company. So I started my own agency with the help of my husband, who was very entrepreneurial, and he used to work in the same business. So we started it together and I now run it on my own. And so that's my, that's how I ended up in foreign rights and publishing, but I have the feeling that there's as many stories as there are people. So there's many different ways of arriving in foreign rights. But definitely an interest for different cultures, speaking another language than your mother tongue is also helpful because that does help connect with people. And yeah, just loving, love to love travel also. That's—

I would imagine relationship building is a big part of it. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. It's very much a people's business.

Yeah.

You're basically a salesperson on the road. That's it.

You open your coat, your jacket, and there's all these—

Exactly. Yeah, that's what, that's often what meetings look like. We don't often, I don't often travel with books in my suitcase. Very heavy suitcase. But, but yeah, I have my catalog and I have a list of titles and, and I pitch. And so of course you build connections as you meet people in person and, and it's, it's very important to understand what that specific person's tastes are like and besides what the publishing company is looking for that they, that, you know, that this person works for. So, so yeah, very much a people's business. Yeah.

It always amazes me to see, to hear how people's dharma, their, you know, their vocation purpose in life finds them. Whether it's just a person who mentions, hey, you should try this, or, you know, how you just end up in these areas that, that are, you know, kind of destined, so to speak. And there are, there is no one path when that happens. Um, so that's really cool. And, and it's clear that you come to this work very, very honored. It definitely is your dharma. Um, and so let's kind of dig in kind of like what, um, what your work life is like being a foreign rights agent. You kind of already mentioned it's a lot of relationship game. It's a lot of travel. Now, do you represent publishing companies mainly? Is that your—

yeah, that's mainly, um, that's mainly structure of the agency. So we have a few American publishing companies that we represent internationally and, um, several French publishing companies and a few Dutch as well.

So when an author is looking at their publishing contract with their publisher and they see as one of the subsidiary rights that the publisher is getting, when they see foreign rights, that is basically your publisher contracting with you to try to get the rights in other countries. Is that correct?

Exactly. Yeah. So when, as an author, you have two options basically if you're agented, which is very often the case in the US. So either the publishing contract that you sign with the US publisher includes in the subsidiary rights, foreign rights, or your agent carves out those rights and then the agent tries to sell them depending on the agency, the size, if they have an international rights department. So it's, there's a lot of different factors that come into play to decide which one is the better option. But yeah, I would say it's publishing companies in the US always have foreign rights departments specifically dedicated to selling rights internationally. Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

So that, that's, that was one of the main questions I have, but although it's like some midsize publishers, definitely small to midsize publishers is debatable whether it would have foreign rights department or an agent. Would you say that's correct or do you work with midsize?

Yeah, I work with mid-size. It sometimes happens that an editor is also a foreign rights person, so there's people sometimes who wear multiple hats. Of course, if your book is published by one of the big five publishing houses, then there's a very specific, big, even very big sizable department for foreign rights. The independent publishing houses, don't necessarily have one person who only does foreign rights, then often it, it can be either the person who heads the subsidiary rights department. So then they don't just sell foreign rights, but they also handle book clubs, mass market paperback, audiobook licensing. So all of the other sublicenses that fall under the subsidiary rights. So that could be one person who then also takes care of foreign rights.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Yeah. When I negotiate publishing contracts for authors, I almost always, that's one of the rights I don't carve out. I mean, I keep it in the contract unless they have some specific affiliation with a country. Maybe they're from Russia or where they already have a built-in market there to where that the publishing company or their agent would not have access to. Um, in which case I would just carve out country or specific countries or regions, but that doesn't come up that much. It's not a— foreign rights is not a, uh, one that I usually mess with as much as, say, film and TV and podcasting and all those other ones. Is there any other— I don't know, what else can you advise for authors when, when they're thinking about foreign rights? That's not really negotiable as far as it's more the publisher negotiating the percentages in those deals, I imagine? And is it country by country as far as kind of what the split would be?

So usually, I mean, in my experience, and again, this really depends on the kind of deal that the agent gets for the publishing rights with the UF publisher, but in general, like, translation rights is 75% for the author, 25% for the publisher. And then UK rights, which is a bit of a different situation because there's no translation involved, but it is foreign rights. It falls under the foreign rights. So UK or Australian or Indian English language rights outside of basically North America is 80% for the author, 20% for the publisher. But again, these percentages may vary. I've seen different ones, but this is kind of a ballpark split. Yeah.

You bring up an interesting question of, yeah, what exactly is foreign rights versus non— it's not, it's not non-English rights, cuz you just said the UK would be foreign.

Yeah, exactly. So foreign is anything outside of North America. I mean, North America can be Canadian. I'm, I, I just went out on submission for one of our US publisher clients in Canada. So they bought North American rights from the agent. And the author is originally from Canada, so they think there may be some interest from Canadian, like local Canadian publishers. So I'm even submitting just English language rights in Canada. So that is— so foreign rights basically is English language rights outside of US/North America, and translation rights falls under foreign rights. So translation rights is anything that is not written in English. And, uh, but even translation rights can be sold and you see that more and more to, to a publishing company that has like one of the bigger groups like Penguin Random House or Planeta. Uh, they also have presence in the US, like, so Spanish language rights now often for the US get picked up by one of those big groups too because it's a growing market for them. So the translation rights are sold, but it's still, it's a domestic, uh, the books are sold domestically but in a different language. Does that make sense?

100%. Yeah. Yeah. This is all so exciting. Uh, I wanna come back in my next life with your job. Now I know you're, um, you have been to the book fairs. Um, was it Frank— was it the Frankfurt Book Fair recently?

Uh, no. So recently It was the Turin Book Fair, which is in, in, in Northern Italy. It's one of the, I would say like smaller international fairs, but it is growing. The two main ones are the Frankfurt Book Fair. So you're correct there, which takes place in October in Frankfurt, Germany. And the London Book Fair, which takes place in the spring. It's either March or April. Um, it's been March in the last couple of years. So those are the two main book fairs that I would say all the, you know, US rights sellers go to. Um, I go to as well. And I, I try to, because I also, I have, I still have very strong connections with Europe. My family is still there. Uh, I still have friends there. We have quite a few clients that are based in Europe, as I said, French publishers and Dutch publishers. So I tend to go also to other book fairs outside of the Frankfurt and the London Book Fair because it is fun.

I understand.

I love it. And it is, uh, it's, it's another, you know, it's the Frankfurt and the London Book Fair are really like B2B. Every 30 minutes you have like back-to-back 30-minute meetings. People are like always in a big rush. Either they come late because they, they're quite sizable. So just even, I always have a table so people come see me. I don't have to run around, but all the acquiring editors, so the ones who are there to listen to me pitch. They need to run around to go from different halls, and so sometimes they arrive late or sometimes there's a mix-up in the schedule. So there's like, those two book fairs are always really intense. Any of the other book fairs, like the Turin Book Fair, there's also, there's a Guadalajara Book Fair in Mexico in December, which is, or late November, early December, which is very important and growing for Latin American publishing world. So those are a lot more laid back, and I found that, of course, it's very useful and it's important to be in London and Frankfurt, but going to those other book fairs really allows me to just really have deeper conversations and real conversations with people because they're not just running around. You can actually, you know, maybe have an hour here, or there's less pressure usually around the London and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Editors are under a lot of pressure to buy new books and they want to have the biggest books and there's a lot of competition with all the others from that same language. So there's not much, like everything has to be very efficient. I mean, there's room for good deep discussions too around dinners and at night, like in drinks and all, but still it's a bit of a different vibe. And the smaller international book fairs there, it really is, There's less pressure. People take more time. The, um, yeah, the relationship building element is, is so much bigger there than just only pitching.

Yeah, for sure. Now it sounds like those book fairs have survived and still sounds like they're flourishing, whereas the US book fair, or fairs, or really fair, kind of just petered out after COVID. Is that True?

Yeah, at Book Expo. I mean, so that was Book Expo America. It had already been struggling in the years before COVID and I remember it was at the Javits. Nobody liked the Javits Center in New York. All the New York editors, if I wanted to see them, I still had to go to their offices. So it was, it was really, yeah, it was, it was already kind of dying a slow death, and then COVID was just the, yeah, I think they tried it virtually maybe 1 or 2 years, but, um, I'm not 100% sure because I was also losing, losing the interest of going because for me, if I wanna see New York editors and I still have to go to their offices, I can go anytime of the year.

Mm-hmm.

We have to go there for the book fair. Although it was, it was nice to see like the indie publishers who are not necessarily based in New York. So, um, it did bring, it did bring that element. So yeah, but I was just thinking about that this morning, how important those in-person meetings are because they really, somebody asked me recently like, oh, but everything can be done on Zoom now. Like people are so much used to have meeting on Zoom and there's still something to those in-person meetings or even like spontaneous meetings. Like in Turin, there was 3 days of meetings in a specific hall, which they called the Wright Center. So I had a table there and I didn't move. From that, from my table. But then the fourth day I actually went to the book fair because it is also unlike London and Frankfurt, it's a public fair. So people from Italy come there from around the country to buy books, meet their authors, have their books signed, come listen to their author speak. So I went on the fourth day, I actually walked around and just saw all the publisher stands. And it's so important just to to see the books, to see the kinds of books different publishers publish. And just, I went up to a few publishing stands that I didn't get to meet at the, in the previous 3 days. And I looked around at their books. I was like, oh, maybe I should, you know, go up to the person who's managing the stand to see maybe the editors here or the publisher. And so I did that and for a couple and I ended up meeting a few people that I wouldn't have met I would never have met probably because they don't necessarily go there. It's quite expensive. You know, the smaller publishing houses just don't have that budget. And, and actually this morning I received an email from one of them and they said they want to offer for a book that I represent, you know, so that would not have happened had I not taken the initiative to go to their stand and ask to meet with the publisher if he was there. So, so yeah, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom's nice. And still we do, I do, I definitely have more meetings now than prior to COVID on Zoom, but just those in-person meetings, it just, you can't replace them.

Yeah. Yeah. Book people are, are like the tangibles of the world. The real books, the real people.

Yeah.

So with you traveling all over the world and you certainly have your finger on the pulse I imagine of trends, of what's trending as far as what's, as far as books, book sales. I'm curious as to what is trending and if that is, I'm sure it changes by region and yet is there a through line with regards to trends?

Romantasy.

Okay.

It is. It's been big for, I would say, 2, 3 years internationally speaking, and it's just, it's not stopping. It really is. Like every time I go, I was in London, I was like, oh man, it's still happening. Like people are still buying romance titles. So it's, it's, and every, used to, it started out with American and UK authors. Having, you know, a lot of success and they were selling their books internationally, or the rights internationally, I should say. And now I'm seeing also more and more like German publishers and Italian publishers and French publishers proposing their romantic authors to an international audience. So I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. No.

That's great. I guess it is the universal language that love is, and it can be very romantic of an Italian Italian man or German prince or, you know. Exactly.

Are you, and you throw in a dragon or two. And another trend I would say that I keep seeing, and it's also been around for a couple of years now, is like Japanese and Korean, what is called healing fiction. So it's like books that make you feel good, that make us forget about what's happening in our lives and just you know, on the, in the streets and in the political scene and all the books. And so I started, so they're written by Japanese or South Korean authors and translated a lot in the US and the UK as well, which is unusual because the US and the UK are very hesitant about translating books from other languages or from just, and, but this is, The first book that I, one of the first books is Before the Coffee Gets Cold. So there's always elements. It is, it is, there's a bookshop, there's a cat, there's coffee. There's, you know, it's kind of like these cozy stories. And there's this, there can be a supernatural element in it. Like, oh, that, you know, there's somebody who passed who's still giving them messages. And, but there's, there's something about, and yeah, that's That's the term that they call it is healing fiction. So it really heals the reader from whatever is, you know, whatever bad is happening in their lives and makes them forget. I definitely noticed in London this year was like escapist fiction, just given the state of the world is, yeah, it's definitely much more on the rise than it was before.

Are there certain countries that have a lot of translation? Let me— so my couple of my books were translated into— in Poland, and, um, and then I had some other, some other people I know, same thing. I was like, wait, Poland, like, really? Is there— anyway, there's a country that have like a real symbiotic relationship where you can like, oh, if, if they like— if this country likes it, then that country is going to like it. Do you, do you see any similarities to that? Genre-based?

That's interesting. I mean, I would— oh, that's a, that's a hard one to, to just answer.

Sure. It's more nuanced.

Yeah. Because there's so many factors that, that are important, but I would say like there's certain genres that sell really well in like Southeast Asia, for instance. So any kind of like business marketing, personal finance books, they sell really well into the Southeast Asian markets. I remember meeting a publisher from HarperOne and he said, in the US, and he said, you know, as soon as one of our books has like Silicon Valley in the subtitle, like we know it's gonna get like a Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese sale. So I mean, that was a couple of years ago, but I, and I think have shifted a little bit, but I still believe it's very much the case. Poland is a very strong market. Just, it's interesting that you, Yeah, that you bring it up. We've done some really good sales from all from the entire like Eastern European territory. Like Poland, I would say is one of the strongest, yeah, and most interested in buying books in translation. And then, you know, when I sell, for instance, a Dutch author, my first, the first country I go to is Germany because, The language is very similar. The culture is very similar. So it's like, it's, it's, yeah, the most obvious country to start with. And once the German, you know, a German sale has happened, then I start going after, after other, other countries, other European countries usually first, and then kind of I widen it going forward. But yeah, it, it, it does happen that neighboring countries tend to buy a lot from one another. It happens also in Scandinavia, like they very, they buy very little in translation except from the other Scandinavian countries.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

I like see you as this such a bridge from all these worlds. It's like you're, what you do is so important to the bigger, the bigger scheme of the world of, of bridging, you know, whether it's information or stories to places that wouldn't otherwise have access to it and really finding the commonality of human nature. I love the healing fiction, the cozy, the cozy, the romance, romancy. It's a way for us to— I mean, books have always been that, a way to go to these other worlds. And through foreign rights, it's a way to really explore different other worlds that we wouldn't have access to. So such an important, important job that you have. I'm curious as— Yeah, sure. Sorry. I was curious as to, are you a writer or aspirations of publishing?

I mean, never say never. Like, I haven't— I used to as a child write a lot. I haven't done that in recent years. What I do love is like to write copy for like our newsletters, the articles on the website. There's a lot of articles. Every time I travel abroad, like I write an article that I post on our website that kind of gives an overview of the trends of the things that I noticed while I was at that specific fair in those specific countries. So I do love that. Like, I love, I think it's communication more that I'm really interested in and that really motivates me. Who knows? I don't know. I always said I'm too young to write anything, you know, a novel, but now as I'm getting older, I'm like, maybe I can't use that excuse anymore. I know.

That used to be mine too.

I have that life experience now, so who knows?

I love it. Yeah, for listeners, you can get on Marlene's newsletter at her website, twoseasagency.com. That's the number 2, seasagency.com. And also follow her on Instagram with the same handle, Two Seas Agency, and follow her around her, all of her travels around the world. Well, this has been awesome, Marlene, as I knew it would be. You're just a plethora of knowledge in the publishing world. So thank you for being on here and sharing with us.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. Any final words you wanted to impart?

Yeah, well, just to get back to what you were just saying, that it does fill me with a lot of joy and me and, you know, I feel like what I'm doing is meaningful is to have those, have stories travel and make everybody understand like we're all human, we all have this shared human experience. We may not all speak the same language and have grown up in very different environments, but our, yeah, our experience and it's deep down inside is, you know, there's a commonality, there's something shared. So I, yeah, I just, that's one of the main reasons why I love what I do is to, yeah, to bring stories to other parts of the world and vice versa from other parts of the world. You here to the US.

It's never been more important than it is now. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you like the podcast, please like, subscribe, maybe even share to your friends. And for more information about my services, visit my website at tishamorris.com. That's T-I-S-H-A-M-O-R-R-I-S.com. Well, that concludes today's episode, and I wish you all the best. Until next time, keep creating and please take care.