Once a work is accepted, commissioning editors negotiate the purchase
of intellectual property rights and agree on royalty rates.
The authors of traditional printed materials sell exclusive
territorial intellectual property rights that match the list
of countries in which distribution is proposed (i.e. the rights
match the legal systems under which copyright protections can
be enforced). In the case of books, the publisher and writer
must also agree on the intended formats of publication -—
mass-market paperback, "trade" paperback and hardback
are the most common options.
The situation is slightly more complex if electronic formatting
is to be used. Where distribution is to be by CD-R or other
physical media, there is no reason to treat this form differently
from a paper format, and a national copyright is an acceptable
approach. But the possibility of Internet download without the
ability to restrict physical distribution within national boundaries
presents legal problems that are usually solved by selling language
or translation rights rather than national rights. Thus, Internet
access across the European Union is relatively open because
of the laws forbidding discrimination based on nationality,
but the fact of publication in, say, French, limits the target
market to those who read French.
Having agreed on the scope of the publication
and the formats, the parties in a book agreement must then agree
royalty rates, the percentage of the gross retail price that
will be paid to the author. This is a difficult because the
publisher must estimate the potential sales in each market and
balance projected revenue against production costs.
