Navigating foreign language rights and finding great translators is tricky business, which is where DropCap comes in! This global rights marketplace for indie authors is revolutionizing the way agents and editors discover exceptional books.
Navigating foreign language rights and finding great translators is tricky business, even for the most experienced indie authors. That's why we're super excited to welcome Lindsay Jones, a co-founder and the CEO of DropCap, a global rights marketplace for indie authors that’s revolutionizing the way agents and editors discover exceptional books.
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Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:01]:
You just tuned into the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs, and all the all arounds of self publishing with the team from D2D and their industry influencing guests. You're listening to Self Publishing Insiders with Draft2Digital.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:00:26]:
Hello, and welcome to Self Publishing Insiders with Draft2Digital. My name is Mark Leslie Lefebvre, and I'm the director of business development for Draft2Digital, and I'm honored to have in the virtual studio with me today Lindsay Jones from DropCap. Lindsay, welcome.
Lindsay Jones [00:00:41]:
Hi. How are you?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:00:43]:
Good. I'm doing great. So we just announced, a partnership with DropCap, and we're gonna talk about that. And if people have any comments, etcetera, I invite you to leave your comments or questions. You know, just drop your comments. We'll address the ones that are appropriate for the content here. If you have other questions, don't worry. You can always ask us, over at support at draft2digital.com.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:01:05]:
But, again, so, Lindsay, your background. So you're the CEO and cofounder of DropCap. Let's talk a little bit about so what is DropCap? And I'm curious about your own background Mhmm. As we move into this area.
Lindsay Jones [00:01:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. So my background is actually in self publishing. So I worked for a self publishing company here where I live in Minneapolis, for about 10 years. They were called Hill a couple of the people that I worked with at Hillcrest. We started Drop Cap in a couple of the people that I worked with at Hillcrest. We started Drop Cap in 2018. And I had no clue about rights or how foreign rights worked or anything like that really when I started the company, but we connected with this amazing agent, Allison Olsen, who ran her own rights agency.
Lindsay Jones [00:01:55]:
And she was seeing a lot of success with self published authors, but on her own, she couldn't scale to serve all of those authors. So we saw this huge opportunity with our self publishing background to bring self published authors into this ecosystem of rights licensing that, that they really didn't have access to.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:02:22]:
Okay. So because a lot of our viewers are coming from the self publishing realm, and they may not be as familiar with the traditional publishing side of things. Yeah. Can you just explain, like, the whole idea of rights? Because it's like, hey. I wrote a book. I'm gonna publish it. I've got free tools on Draft2Digital, and I can hire an editor and cover designer and off to the rights as I go. Can you talk a little bit about how rights work in the traditional landscape in terms of, you know, an author has a manuscript and then they sell or license the rights to an agent, and I mean, in English language, but then obviously there's the foreign language rights.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:02:55]:
Can you just kind of give us a high level
Lindsay Jones [00:02:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of times when an author is traditionally published, their publisher, controls the foreign rights for their book. If the author is really savvy or if they've already seen success, they might be able to negotiate to control their own rights. But most first time authors with a traditional publisher, the publisher controls those rights for a certain amount of time. And what they do is, they have their own in house rights agents who talk to rights agents for other publishers in other countries, and they have all these negotiations behind the scenes. And that's how books end up translated into other languages. The example that I love to use for this that I think highlights it best is actually a self published book, which is The Martian by Andy Weir.
Lindsay Jones [00:03:46]:
That started out self published. And Yeah. That was right. He was actually approached first by a Canadian audiobook company who wanted to buy the audio rights from him.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:03:57]:
And
Lindsay Jones [00:03:57]:
Oh, yeah. Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:03:59]:
Yeah. I'm in Canada, so I'm very proud of him.
Lindsay Jones [00:04:02]:
Right. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:04:02]:
Discovered him.
Lindsay Jones [00:04:03]:
Yeah. So they discovered him. They saw they found him on, he wasn't even, I think, at first publishing his book on Amazon. He was just publishing it on his website.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:04:13]:
Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:04:13]:
And they discovered him, and it kind of snowballed from there, and he ended up getting a print deal, and then obviously the movie out of it. So all of those different formats of the book, starting with the audio version, those are your subsidiary rights as an author. And if you own the rights, if you control those rights, you can license them to other publishers and have your book, you know, translated or produced in different formats, by those, other publishers that are licensing the rights.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:04:47]:
So and then and then something because I've seen this with friends of mine who do both traditional publishing and self publishing is when I when I go I'm just giving you an example. I've got my manuscript. It's ready to go. It's ready for prime time. It's edited. I publish it on Draft2Digital, and, and that is the English language rights. Or if I have let's say I have a deal with a Canadian publisher who's gonna keep the Canadian rights, I can choose to go in, when I publish it, and I can actually manage territories and say, publish everywhere but Canada, draft to digital. Mhmm.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:05:19]:
And it'll go everywhere, except it won't go to Canada, and then my publisher in Canada will make it available. So there are right splitting right splitting, I think, is becoming more and more common, particularly when authors are savvy. But let's talk about, because I wanna dig into the details of of drop cap. I've been in this industry since, well, 10 years before all the cool kids started doing shit out before. It was when I got into self publishing way back when. But, I know that there's a lot of authors who do really well with their English language titles. And we have the abilities in the authors to hire a translator and hire an editor in that language and then hire proofreaders in that language and then publish that book in another language. Mhmm.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:06:02]:
But it can cost, quite a bit. So that's been a barrier for authors for a while. There are authors who are so successful that it doesn't matter. Right? They just go, yeah. Here's my wallet. Let's just do it. And we have some authors, through Draft2Digital who do an amazing job. But then there's authors who are doing really well, but maybe it's kinda like, well, 5, 6, $10, 000 for a translation.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:06:23]:
It's kind of scary. Mhmm. Oh, let me go find an agent. I mean, that's not an easy thing to do. Right? Agents don't just walk down the street and advertise, hey. I'm looking for a manuscript. Right? Like, this I mean, always in my experience with the industry, you know, going to the international book fairs, Frankfurt and, London book fair, and there used to be a major 1 in New York that fortunately died a slow long down.
Lindsay Jones [00:06:47]:
I was at that 10I
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:06:49]:
know. That was so sad to see. But that would be the place where sometimes editors and agents and, potentially, if an author had a big enough track record, may be able to to secure a meeting with an agent to do a pitch or something. And I know Thriller Fest in New York is where you can pitch to agents and stuff. But so it's kinda like a, a black hole for authors. Like, how do I get my stuff in front of agents? And let's talk about how DropCap provides an opportunity for people who may be exploring those options.
Lindsay Jones [00:07:17]:
Yes. Yes. So DropCap particularly DropCap Marketplace, we started because we wanted authors to be able to get their books in front of foreign rights agents and foreign editors.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:07:30]:
Okay.
Lindsay Jones [00:07:33]:
But it's not always easy to do that, like you said, if you don't have an agent. So the authors that are coming into us through Drop Cap Marketplace, we actually don't represent those authors as their agent. They're using this service to list their books, and then we have rights buyers, almost 3, 000 of them, that our in house rights agents have worked with over 2 decades, and they're using DropCap Marketplace to find books that they want to license. So we're kind of in a way, we're almost cutting out the agent. Not quite because many authors still work with an agent and there's oftentimes an agent on the foreign side as well. But really, we want that direct connection to be able to happen, and then we as an agency are there to help if an author receives a rights inquiry and they're like, I don't know how to negotiate a contract. I need help with this. So we want to expand that access to that network of rights buyers that, like you said, you can you can go to an international book fair and maybe be able to get a meeting with someone, But really, that's very difficult to do.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:08:41]:
Right. So I I have to admit, so I'm gonna share something very personal here with you. Now I met my current partner on an online match service, actually, match.com. And it was an amazing experience because I was at an age where, like, what am I gonna do? Go to clubs at my age? No. I'm not way too old for that. Like, it's past my bedtime. So it was it was so funny. I mean, finding a marketplace where you can look for compatibility and say, well, I'm looking for someone who likes craft beer and books, or whatever the case may be.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:09:11]:
And so I'm a big fan of that, the idea of how of having access to, a platform like that, because let's be honest, a lot of us are introverts. And the whole idea of actually having to like, well, I don't wanna talk about my book. I just wanna write it. So let's talk about that. I do I also wanna share a little bit some comments from people that popped up, and I think this is just fantastic. So, Terry says every quote that I received, was $4, 000 per book to translate. And then, Opportunity said, I just paid 3, 500 for a translation.
Lindsay Jones [00:09:42]:
Mhmm.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:09:42]:
And, of course, I'm gonna keep going with some comments. RA, Morley said, I hadn't thought much about translations and the rights to it, so I'm learning. Glad. Good. And if you have any questions specifically for Lindsay about this, please do ask, as well. So this is this is great. So thank you guys for those comments. But yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:09:59]:
So so that marketplace, I think is an opportunity for authors. So it's kinda like I'm gonna spend 3, 500 just to get the translation done. Now we're not talking editing. We're not talking about the cover for the market or even understanding the market. So these agents, they understand, like, the German market or the Italian market or the Spanish market or whatever it is. Right?
Lindsay Jones [00:10:21]:
Right. Right. Well, so when your book is licensed to a foreign publisher, this is really the same thing as a traditional publishing contract that you might enter into in the US.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:10:32]:
Right.
Lindsay Jones [00:10:33]:
So the German publisher, for example, they see your book on the marketplace, the rights are free in Germany, you negotiate a license, The German publisher is going to pay for the cost of translation. They're going to design their own cover that fits the market that they're in, because aesthetics vary greatly, throughout the world. So they're going to design their own cover. They're going to do all of the work to market it and distribute it in Germany. And they have the contacts to do that. They know their market. They know what resonates with the people that are buying books in their market. So not only are you not having to pay for the translation, you're getting all of this additional support from the German publisher that, that you wouldn't necessarily get if you translate the book yourself and then list it for sale in Germany.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:11:26]:
I love that. So I also wanna, kinda come back to something you said and just to explore it. So if I were to choose to purchase the ability to list a title in the marketplace as an author and I get a nibble from a German publisher, I'm not obligated to use drop cap, agents.
Lindsay Jones [00:11:43]:
Right.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:11:44]:
But I have the option of saying, yeah. Could you could you help me with this? But I could I could bring my own agent in, or I could do whatever I want to at that point.
Lindsay Jones [00:11:53]:
That's right. Yeah. So we are always going to provide you the support if you want it. But if you don't, our platform is agnostic. And even if you are using your own agent, we're not taking a cut of that rights licensing deal whatsoever, we're just helping make the connection. Which I think is really important because there were various platforms that tried to do something similar to what we're doing, and they were kind of like sites like Upwork or that sort of thing. They were trying to take a cut of the license, like of the advance that the author gets. And there's already so many deductions that happen along the way between taxes and amount that the author ultimately gets, that if we're not the agent for that deal, we don't feel like that if we're not the agent for that deal, we don't feel like we need to take any cut of that.
Lindsay Jones [00:12:46]:
So that's the concept that we worked with when we created the marketplace, was that authors are free to bring in their own agent, do it themselves. But what we find oftentimes is that when you see your first contract, you start reading through it, your licensing contract, and you're like, I I need a little bit of backup here.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:13:08]:
Yes.
Lindsay Jones [00:13:08]:
And I really do encourage that, whether it's us as the agent or another agent, because there are when you get a contract from a publisher, it's gonna be in favor of the publisher, not maliciously, necessarily. But for example, something we often see is that we want to make sure a licensing agreement has a provision in it so that if the publisher doesn't publish on time, the rights revert back to the author. Or if the publisher doesn't sell a certain number of copies in a certain amount of time, the rights go back to the author. So that as an agency is what we're doing when we represent an author in a deal. Right. But, yeah, like I said, with the marketplace, you don't necessarily have to have us represent you.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:13:54]:
Cool. Cool. Thank you. So we've got some comments we wanna get into, but first thing, I'm gonna, pop up is a question from Woodland lady. So does DropCap help, UK self published authors? Because you're a US based company, but do you help people around
Lindsay Jones [00:14:07]:
the world? So our specialty is English language, so we do have authors that are in the UK. We have authors in Australia and Canada as well.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:14:14]:
Okay. Cool. So, I mean, it doesn't matter where the author is geographically. It's not like you have it's just you your English language. So that that's cool. And so I want I wanna pop this question up, but I want to pop it up and and maybe there's gonna be a little bit of a prelude to this. So, opportunities, I think I said opportunities last time because I know it's a brilliant play on word, by the way. Says, I'm sold.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:14:35]:
I've been looking for something like this. How do I sign up? Take my money. But, Linda, I wanna say, as an author myself, hang on. You wanna make sure it's right for you. So let's talk about that. Who is this right for, and who is this not right for? Because, again, you're not there just to take money. You're there to help, remove barriers and potentially, get great books out into different markets and negotiate. I I know I think of it as Seth Godin always as a linchpin.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:15:02]:
Right? Connecting the right people so that really cool things can happen. Because chances are, I you know, there's books behind you. You're probably a book nerd.
Lindsay Jones [00:15:09]:
Yeah. Yes. I have I have a few.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:15:12]:
Okay.
Lindsay Jones [00:15:14]:
Yeah. So I think the authors that are going to be most successful, specifically with foreign rights licensing, are those that have some traction domestically already, especially if you don't have any other books that have been licensed into a foreign market yet. So our kind of very general rule of thumb is if you're selling at least 20 copies a month for at least 3 months, that's kind of a good baseline. So it's not like you need to be selling 100 of copies to receive foreign interest in your book. But you do want to have some amount of traction here in the US. Other things that are really, really helpful are if you've won any awards for your book, if you have any nice reviews, any endorsements for you as an author that you can point to. Those are things that rights buyers are looking at beyond just the sales numbers. So if you're doing a really good job marketing your book here in the US, that can translate to, translate to right sales for you.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:16:19]:
No problem.
Lindsay Jones [00:16:20]:
Right. Exactly. So, yeah. So we really recommend that authors, are a little bit established if they're if they haven't done any foreign rights licensing before. If you have, you know, if you're maybe on book 2 or 3 or 4 and say you have, gotten rights licenses for your first book, then you can kinda bring in a new book that, that is unproven in a way, and rights buyers are gonna say, okay, well, the author's first book was licensed in 3 or 4 different languages, so I'm gonna take a chance in the second book. But if you're not quite there yet, having that domestic track record really helps.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:16:57]:
Okay. III really like that. And I guess the other question is is, I mean, like anything, like in in publishing, whether you go with a traditional publishing deal or self publishing, I mean, there's never any guarantees. And 1 of the things I do remember with my own history in traditional publishing is it's a long game. I mean, I would send the manuscript out, wait 6 to 9 months for the rejection to come, and then send it out again. And then when you get an acceptance, sometimes the book doesn't get published for 2 or 3 years. So just putting my book up on drop cap is not gonna say, oh, every agent in the world's suddenly gonna go, Mark, I want your book. I mean, this is this is a long play, and it's a long shot in many ways.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:17:35]:
Right? Because this is a lot of really smart people looking for the right thing at the right time. Can you talk a little bit about that? It's not like instant, you put it up and you win you scratch. It's a scratch for you.
Lindsay Jones [00:17:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is a very long timeline, and this is, trust me, when I going from self publishing into foreign rights, it's like a whole different world. The foreign rights industry is very archaic in a lot of ways, and it does suffer from that, like, really long timeline of for things that traditional publishing in general suffers from. So, what we typically see is at least 6 months, from the time that a book is first shown to our rights buyers to when it's starting to get interest, where they're requesting to see the PDF, they want to potentially make an offer. And then sometimes, say you get an offer at 6 months in, it could take another 3 months to negotiate the offer and sign the contract.
Lindsay Jones [00:18:39]:
So it's 9 to 12 months probably from the point that someone first sees the book and is interested in it to when you're actually, signing a licensing deal and getting an advance for it. And then once you do sign the contract, it's, I think, about 12 to 18 months for the book to be published in the foreign country, because the translation needs to happen. They want to time it with certain releases in their market. They want to spool up marketing efforts. So it's a long process and then, you know, the book goes on the market. It could be another year to 2 years before you start seeing royalties from sales in that market. So it really is a long game.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:19:21]:
Cool. Thank you for that. I appreciate
Lindsay Jones [00:19:24]:
that. You
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:19:24]:
know, as an example, I mean, a lot of authors in the in the author community know, respect, adore Joanna Penn. You know, we all follow So
Lindsay Jones [00:19:31]:
do we.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:19:32]:
Joe and the Creative Penn podcast and all the amazing things because she's, like, a leader in our industry Right? Right?
Lindsay Jones [00:19:45]:
Yes. It did. It did. I I believe she started working with us over a year ago, and just recently in the past couple of months, we, we signed our first deal for her. So it took a while and really, it can be frustrating to have to wait, but really, ultimately, I think it's a good thing because our rights agents, when we do represent you in the sale of your licensing, they're taking their time to find the right publisher. The publishers that are reviewing the books to see if it works for their market, if they want to publish it, It's an investment for them. So they're taking their time. A whole team of editors is typically, looking at the book to make sure that it fits their list, that they can provide adequate marketing for it.
Lindsay Jones [00:20:34]:
So it's a long process. But ultimately, if we can get the book with a publisher that is going to help that book and that author be successful in that market, it it's kinda it's worth the wait.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:20:46]:
Right. Right. I love that. Thank you for that. Yeah. And I'll do a personal example because, when I you know, I've been looking into DropCap for quite a while. Yeah. Obviously, before negotiating a deal for, Draft2Digital.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:20:59]:
I always I put on my Mark Leslie up there hat and say, well, is this something Mark Leslie would want to do? And I have, over 30, books that, I've published and still have my own rights to that haven't been licensed, to a publisher. And so I, of the 30 books, I listed 2 of them. Because, again, I looked at it and said, I don't think this is a foreign language. And I was like, they'd be interested in this 1, but they may be interested in this 1. So I made that, decision. And and I did get a bit of a nibble, from 1 that kinda was it was like, you know, fishing. Sometimes you get nibble, and, yeah, nope. They're lost.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:21:32]:
It's good. And and that's and that happens in the industry all the time, like, with options and stuff like that. That always happens.
Lindsay Jones [00:21:39]:
You you
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:21:39]:
get some interest in that and that it's it. But that's just part of the industry. So can we dig into some very specific questions that I see coming?
Lindsay Jones [00:21:46]:
Yeah. Happy to. K.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:21:47]:
Cool. Alright. So let's go and let's go with, alright. So, Diana, asks, can you be more specific about, what sorts of fiction you handle? So, Diana says, the website says selected fiction, example, new age mystery, etcetera. So, again, any sort of insights into the types of things that you handle or that works well?
Lindsay Jones [00:22:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great example. New Asian mystery, we do we do well with. I'd like to add that, that romance and specifically romantacy is, is a burgeoning, market. For example, we did really well with the book of Azrael. I don't know if you've heard of that 1. It's like a dark romantecy, that was published by, Rose and Star, which is very small independent publisher.
Lindsay Jones [00:22:38]:
So it's kind of always evolving depending on where the market is shifting. And it's probably evolving faster than our website copy.
Lindsay Jones [00:22:49]:
But I would say any fiction that, that you do have a good, like, domestic sales record with, we're certainly open to Genres that are maybe more difficult to sell would be like personal memoir, that could be a difficult 1 for us. But in terms of fiction, really, it's where the winds are blowing at the time, and that's not always easy to predict.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:23:15]:
Well, no. I know. The industry shifts and changes. I mean, I've been a bookseller for long enough that vampires are in and then they're not in and then they're in again and then they're not in. And so, I mean, I'm thinking Well,
Lindsay Jones [00:23:25]:
they're in if they're romantically, like, in.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:23:28]:
Well, now, yeah. Now.
Lindsay Jones [00:23:29]:
Yes. Now. But I remember there's
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:23:30]:
a time where, like, you know, Anne Rice was huge and then he's like, I can't sell a vampire novel or that's what New York was saying. And then
Lindsay Jones [00:23:36]:
Exactly. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:23:37]:
Stephenie Meyer happened and and a whole bunch of other things. So so, again, just gotta ask this because Terry asked. So, male male paranormal suspense, is that is that a thing that you're seeing instead of
Lindsay Jones [00:23:48]:
I would say that, it it's difficult to get really into the the niche markets. So in terms of, like, trends that we're seeing, we are seeing more, like I said, romantacy. I I can't really speak to, like, really specific, you know, combinations like that.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:24:09]:
Well, because yeah. And I guess the industry does change and shift, and sometimes something hits and then everyone's looking for it.
Lindsay Jones [00:24:16]:
Yeah. Well, yeah. And like I said, like, it can really be affected by your domestic marketing efforts, your domestic sales. If we are working with a foreign publisher that, their list contains, like, paranormal romance, they they're going to be most interested in, can this book sell in my country?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:24:41]:
Right.
Lindsay Jones [00:24:41]:
And they're looking at, you know, what is it doing in the US to help me decide if it's gonna sell in my country? So if you have a lot of nice awards and you are selling well in the US and, you know, we are matching this book with a publisher that works with paranormal romance, that, you know, that can that can work kind of no matter what the subgenre is.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:25:04]:
Right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Alright. I'm gonna get into a detailed 1 here, from Elodie
Lindsay Jones [00:25:11]:
Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:25:12]:
Who says, when I sold rights for 3 of my books to a French publishing house, an imprint of Hachette, I was able to keep my ebook rights. The translation was already done. Is that possible there too?
Lindsay Jones [00:25:24]:
Yes. Yeah. So, most of the licenses that we do, are print licenses, and ebook and audiobook tend to be an add on. So if we were working with an author where we were representing them for a deal and they told us, I want to keep my ebook rights, I don't wanna offer my ebook rights, that's something that we could do. And it's, you know, it's not super uncommon to just license print rights for something.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:25:52]:
Oh, wow. So that's interesting because, I mean, with the contracts that I've signed with, you know, Canadian and other publishers, it's usually a rights grab. It's like all formats. Oh, I mean, sometimes English language. So that's interesting that it's, they're usually looking very specifically. And I think rights splitting, is beneficial to an author in in those cases. Right? Because then you can, divvy it up. I know authors who've, you know, sold the audio rights to this publisher and self published that and done this.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:26:20]:
So I I I'm a fan of
Lindsay Jones [00:26:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I would yeah. And I I definitely see the value if you've already done a translation of your book and you wanna keep the ebook rights for that because it's very easy to sell the ebook in another country, I I totally see the value in that.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:26:36]:
Oh, cool. I love that. I love that. Cool. So Elodie did ask a a separate question, a little later on, and the question is, so what if it's a duet? And, the first book, I guess, in the series is Perma Free, and, there are more than 20 books per month. Obviously, moving more than 20 books per month come from the second book in the duet. Mhmm. Is it worth to to put the first book in the marketplace?
Lindsay Jones [00:26:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I would I would typically always recommend, if you have a whole series of books to try to get traction with the first 1 first, with with foreign rights buyers, because that's going to hopefully hook them. And I do think there's a lot of value in showing them how many copies have been downloaded, if you're giving it away, because again, they're looking to see if the readership that you have in the US is going to translate to their country. And if you can say, I've had thousands of readers download this book and it's really well reviewed, that that can hopefully result in foreign rights licensing for you as well.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:40]:
No. I love that. I love that. That is really that's really interesting. Yeah. Because, again, you're just demonstrating that there's a demand for this because people
Lindsay Jones [00:27:50]:
are failing.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:50]:
So even if they're not sales, those downloads could potentially, get the interest of the right person saying, well, and there's 6 more books in the series or whatever. Right?
Lindsay Jones [00:27:59]:
Right. Right. Yeah. And once you kind of get rolling with the series, it can get very exciting because then your foreign say your French publisher is already anticipating the next book, you're licensing the French rights at the same time that you're publishing the English edition. That can get very exciting.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:17]:
Right. Cool. No. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'm gonna pop up with this other question that's potentially tangential that may be related, but we're talking about rights, and when we talk about rights, we often, us us authors, can't help but think about this question and, opportunities is,
Lindsay Jones [00:28:31]:
well,
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:31]:
do you guys do anything with movie and game rights?
Lindsay Jones [00:28:34]:
Yeah. Right now, our we're mostly focused on foreign rights because that's our area of expertise with our agents. So we would like to transition into offering more service around movie rights. But really, we would need to find the right film co agent for us to work with to really do that in a meaningful way.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:57]:
Right. Okay. No. Thank you for that. Yeah. And I love the fact that you're focusing in a very specific area where you're specializing rather than generalizing.
Lindsay Jones [00:29:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, 5 years down the road, I would be a very happy camper if, you know, we're offering
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:29:12]:
Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:29:12]:
Film, TV, streaming, foreign, everything. Right. But, yeah, I don't wanna I don't wanna mislead because our in house agents right now are focused on foreign rights.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:29:21]:
Yeah. So, for example, you're right. That that's the specialty of your in house agents and all of the people in your network, that are, coming to the marketplace from various countries. They're looking to acquire English language book rights. Yes. Right? You don't have Hollywood people there. You know?
Lindsay Jones [00:29:36]:
For the most part, we're tangentially involved in in potentially a few, deals of that nature. But, yeah, those are much fewer and farther between right now.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:29:45]:
Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:29:46]:
I will say that we do have quite a few rights buyers that purchase audio rights, including English audio rights. So we do have some traction there with audio in particular. Okay. But, yeah, I I would say, like, TV streaming, that sort of thing is a work in progress. Game rights, probably even further down the road than, movies.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:30:08]:
It's a lot more complicated. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. I get that. So no. And I appreciate the fact that you're specializing.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:30:13]:
Kinda like we recommend authors is understand your niche market and focus on them. Don't try to make everyone happy. Just focus on making them happy, and that's probably alright. So I wanna get more back into sort of, you know, playing dead devil's advocate and and just saying, okay. So, you know, I'm a new writer. I wrote the best book in the universe. It's fantastic. I think it's great.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:30:35]:
My mom loves it. You know? It's you know, my cousin read it. It's great. And I haven't had a lot of sales, but I really think this is gonna do, good in French. I mean, is that something where I was like, okay. I haven't done anything in the English language with it, but I know it's an amazing novel, and I bet you French people are gonna love it because I have a French last name. Yeah. Like, I don't know.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:30:53]:
Like, like, what would you say to authors who are pretty excited and are kind of like, here, take my money. I mean, this is, is that necessarily a good idea for them?
Lindsay Jones [00:31:03]:
Not necessarily. Like I like I said earlier, I do think it's really important to have a bit of a track record here domestically. You know, like I said, it doesn't need to be 100 and 100 of books, but it's much harder to get traction a harder for fiction if you don't have a domestic track record. If you have written a nonfiction book and you have some sort of credentials like a PhD in, you know, psychology or something like that, that can be a little bit easier because that's kind of, that's showing a track record without necessarily having the sales. So there are some applications where, you know, you may not have done much in the US, but there's still going to be interest because of the topic and potentially because of the author's credentials. But with fiction, that's so much more subjective that it doesn't If it's a good book, it's a good book. It doesn't really matter where you went to school. So you kinda have to do the work here first to show the other people that it's a good book.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:32:13]:
Okay. Thank you. And I started off this Guillaume, you've written French and English already. You've already self translated.
Lindsay Jones [00:32:23]:
So Well, it it's that's interesting. I just wanna say that's, like, we have licensed books because the author is they have some sort of background in the country of that we're licensing into. Ah, okay. So that is a thing. I would just say it's probably an easier sell if it's nonfiction because, you know, like I said, the author's credentials are kind of more important for nonfiction books.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:32:50]:
No. And I think that makes a lot of sense as, yeah, I'm a speaker. I specialize in talking to groups about this. This is the kind of audience that I've commanded. I speak all over the world.
Lindsay Jones [00:32:59]:
Right.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:32:59]:
Right. So, yeah, there's special circumstances. Okay. So let's get let's dig into the I'm gonna reach for my wallet and say, so I'm interested in listing a title. I know we offer a a discount through our affiliate chip, which I'm always excited when we can save authors money. Yeah. So we save authors money, time, headache, hassle, all those things. So I'm willing to wanna list the title.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:33:20]:
Can we talk about the what are the costs involved, and, obviously, the raw costs, and then we can share, like, the Mhmm. Discount is being offered. Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:33:29]:
So for 1 book for 1 year is $97. Okay. And that's for, like, a 12 month period. Right? Yep. Yep. And, if you have more than 1 book, we have, our next level up is for 2 books to 10 books, and that's 2.97, again, for the year. And then, if you have more than 10 books, that's, 9.97 for the year.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:33:51]:
Okay. Alright. And so that's just the options for authors who are thinking of testing the waters or whatever. So it's Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's not a free service. It's a service that costs money because it has to get listed and is shown to agents and etcetera. Okay. So so in reaction, we had someone who's like, yes.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:09]:
I still wanna do it. So we do have an affiliate. So we have an affiliate, relationship with this, and I'm gonna Jim helpfully put the link somewhere here for me. And I think it's the, where is the is this it here? This is the URL that we have. So with that or we also have a code that people can use if they could just go to drop the cap marketplace. Right? What and do you remember Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:34:30]:
The so the promo code is draft2digital. If you just go to dropcapmarketplace.com, if you go to the affiliate link, it'll apply the code automatically.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:39]:
Automatically. So draft2digital, easy to remember.
Lindsay Jones [00:34:42]:
Yep.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:42]:
And that and that gets, what does that get an author?
Lindsay Jones [00:34:45]:
20% off.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:46]:
20% off in the 1st year. So if I wanted to list a book and I wanted to try it out, I could say so instead of 97 u in US, the Canadian has to ask
Lindsay Jones [00:34:56]:
Right.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:56]:
$97 US, I'd get 20% off that in my 1st year if I use the affiliate link. Okay. Alright. So, hopefully, hopefully then, opportunities now you understand a little bit about, the logistics. Now I wanna go back into the reality of this because, again, I've I've got lots of books out. But when I decided to list, I was like, yeah. I'm gonna put these 2 up. Mhmm.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:35:18]:
And I guess I coulda just put 1. But I thought, maybe in the next 6 months or something as as sales start coming in, maybe I'll list something else. So is there a certain strategy that you recommend, authors sort of when they wanna approach this? Because it's very new for a lot of us. Mhmm.
Lindsay Jones [00:35:34]:
Yeah. I I think it's a great idea if you have multiple books, even if you wanna just pick your best seller
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:35:42]:
Right.
Lindsay Jones [00:35:42]:
And just list that 1 book just to try it out, I think that can be a really good strategy. Because, again, like, this part of DropCap Marketplace was born of the fact that, we would get a lot of authors coming to us and saying, does this have legs? Is this going to have traction internationally? And we say, you know, we don't really know until we show it to our rights buyers. So this was a way for us to help our authors get their books in front of rights buyers in a way that is inexpensive, and they're not having to enter into any sort of agency agreement that is going to, tie them exclusively into using us. So it's like a way of, you know, getting your feet wet with rights licensing, seeing if there's traction, seeing if there's interest. And you know, if if there's not, it's, you know, it's not gonna break the bank. Like, we you know, we're all kind of on the same team. Like, we wanna we wanna license these books.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:36:41]:
Yeah.
Lindsay Jones [00:36:41]:
But, but, yeah, the reality is that some will not receive interest, and we just wanna make sure that it's, you know, it's still valuable to authors even if, ultimately, they don't get a license out of it.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:36:52]:
Thank you. And so I'm gonna ask you a couple more questions because I when I was considering, is this for me? Should I do it? Because, you know, paying for the translations was out of my price range. But then I looked at the cost. I was like, okay. So I I bundle up my manuscript, and I fly to Frankfurt, and I hope to meet with an agent. And I don't really know. And I know the industry relatively well, but not well enough to to be able to sweet talk my way into every room. Or, you know, for $97, with my, of course, draft digital discount, I I can get, a discount on that, and I can put it up for a year to see.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:37:28]:
Mhmm. Just test the waters. So at the end of the year, I'm not obligated. It's not like, no. No. You're locked in for 7 7 years or anything like that. Right? The end of the year, if I'm not happy, I was like, okay. I'm not gonna renew.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:37:38]:
Right?
Lindsay Jones [00:37:39]:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And we, you know, we fully understand that if you've if you've had your book available for a year and it has gotten no traction, you
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:37:46]:
know, we're happy to
Lindsay Jones [00:37:46]:
part ways. We understand that that after a year, it's probably unlikely that it makes sense to continue that. So, yeah, really, it's let's test the waters. Let's see if this is interesting to international buyers, and hopefully it is, and, you know, kinda go from there.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:07]:
No. I love that. Thank you. I I appreciate that. I appreciate the sort of that integrity and that sort of upfront. Thank you. I love that.
Lindsay Jones [00:38:13]:
Yeah. As well. So, I
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:13]:
have to pop up this comment that from miss Leila says, it's nice having a partnership with Bennington. Exactly. I mean, and and that's and that's the thing is, I mean, we interact with so many different people in the industry. And in my role as, director of business development, I'm I'm approached at least 3 or 4 times a week from different companies that wanna work with Draft2Digital, or they just want to buy an author list or whatever. And we're like, oh, show me something that's gonna benefit our authors. Show me something that's gonna save them time. That's gonna save them money,
Kevin Tumlinson [00:38:46]:
that's
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:47]:
gonna save them headaches, or that is gonna remove a barrier that's causing I mean, because our whole company was founded by an author and his friends who had a barrier saying, hey, I wanna be able to make an ebook easily, free. You know? Like, that that's where it comes from. So a lot of the, the partners. So, I mean, I mean, I I think my initial contact with Drop Cap was prior to the pandemic when we first started talking to folks.
Lindsay Jones [00:39:11]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:39:12]:
And then as we both grew, and then we really came back to the table and said, yeah. I think there's an opportunity here, and I think it's affordable, and I think this is an option some people might want to explore.
Lindsay Jones [00:39:21]:
Mhmm. Yeah. And when we first when we first talked to Draft2Digital, like you said, it was before the pandemic, and it was before we came up with the concept for an open marketplace. At that time, we were still you know, we still very much wanted to bring in more, self published authors into our ecosystem. But we we found that our stumbling block was, having to sign an exclusive agreement with us. Yeah. Because that you know, you're entering into a contract. It's, you know, detailed.
Lindsay Jones [00:39:54]:
You're saying that, you know, you're going to give us the exclusive on your book for at least a year. I I understand why that was, kind of an obstacle for authors, you know, just wanting to keep their options open. And that's 1 of the reasons too why we created the marketplace was that so you wouldn't have to enter into an exclusive agreement for us to be your agent. You can, you know, test the waters without making that decision first. And then, you know, when you get your licensing agreement and you're looking at the terms of it, then you can say, you know, I really feel like I should have an agent. So, yeah, that's I'm glad that we, you know, kind of evolved into this open marketplace concept because I feel like it is a really good value and, and works well for a lot of authors.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:40:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. Again and again, it's not for every author, but authors who are considering and looking at it and then maybe measuring the pros and cons. Am I gonna DIY this? Am I gonna put a feeler out in the market and see if there's a, there's a market for it? I love, I mean, I like having options as an offer, and that's always one of my favorite things. So you have a free rights guide, as well that kind of explains a bit more detail. I know we linked to it in our, the blog post that we put out and emailed to, several of our authors. But that's, dropcapmarketplace.com/download-free-rights.guide? Yes. Dot dash yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:16]:
And I think, some of my colleagues will drop that comment, a linkable comment over in the comment section as well. And and we're and we're nearing towards the end. If anyone has any questions, there is a gentleman who dropped the question that looks like it's in Spanish. I cannot read Spanish, so potentially if someone wants to Google translate that for me, we'd be able to answer in English. See, we're doing foreign lights, foreign language translations.
Lindsay Jones [00:41:38]:
I know. I I wish my colleague Allison was here. She's 1 of our rights agents and 1 of our cofounders. She is completely fluent in Spanish.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:45]:
Ah, there you go.
Lindsay Jones [00:41:46]:
We'd be able to help with that.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:47]:
So so, my apologies, friend, that that we're not able to answer your question, but I'm not equipped. I don't wanna answer the wrong question. But, this is something about, oh, how to make audiobooks. Yo. It's a quick thank you, Jim. Question about how to make, like, audiobooks, and I think 1 of our, 1 of our reps will answer, that question because it's a different topic, not related to what we're talking about. But thank you. Okay.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:42:11]:
So another question's popping up. Thank you guys for this. Elodie says, how long is the affiliate code valid for? Oh, 0, great. Actually, good question. So the draft digital affiliate code, I mean, that's just in the 1st year. Right?
Lindsay Jones [00:42:22]:
Right. Yeah. So the the code itself is I mean as long as our partnership is going, it's indefinite but but yeah, the discount would be for the first year of the service.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:42:31]:
For the 1st year. Okay. So that that gives you a chance to save some money on testing the waters, etcetera. So that is fantastic. So, Lindsay, are there any, like, you guys I mean, you've been dealing with authors and small publishers and agents for a long time. Are there any sort of FAQs that I neglected to ask that you feel would be important for authors to know and understand?
Lindsay Jones [00:42:52]:
Yeah. I I like to just make the point that, rights licensing, it's kind of a new concept to wrap your head around. Like I said, when I was in self publishing, we would occasionally get rights inquiries for our authors, and we were kind of like, this seems like a scam. I don't know what to do with this. And that's kind of once we started getting more of those, that's when we realize like, oh, this is a whole part of the industry that we know nothing about. So it is very different, I think, especially for self published authors than anything else you do because, 1, because you're kind of, you're giving up a little bit of control of your book when you license it to a foreign publisher. They get to do the translation, they get to make a new cover for it, they get to decide how the marketing is gonna work. So that, I like to point that out to authors because some authors don't want that, and that's totally fine.
Lindsay Jones [00:43:47]:
But yeah, you are giving up a little bit of control. I like to point out that it's licensing is not the same as exports. It's not the same as, like, foreign distribution because, again, you're not in control of it. The the foreign publisher is doing all of the work to translate, edit, and print the books, and they're gonna have their printed stock of books in their own market, and they're going to sell it. So that's not the same thing as, you know, listing it for sale, listing the English language for sale in that foreign country. In fact, you could still do that and have a foreign license agreement in in that country if the languages are different. Yeah. So I just, I kinda like to point those things out because it is a very different kind of concept from a lot of what you encounter when you self publish your book.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:44:38]:
Of course. And so, we're getting a thank you because, Lexi helped out, and Guillaume translated for us. Thank you. What a great community we have as well. So and, Lindsay, I forgot. So, I received a question from an author this morning, and I neglected to ask the question, but the question was, and it goes back to something that I remember as a traditionally published author sending manuscripts out as you don't ever pay an agent. The money should flow from the from the publisher, from the agent to the author. And they were concerned because they're like, wait.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:45:07]:
It sounds like I'm paying an agent. Can you please explain, explain that? Maybe can
Lindsay Jones [00:45:11]:
you read some
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:45:12]:
of that anxiety?
Lindsay Jones [00:45:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Happy to. So when you're listing your book on Dropout Marketplace, you're not entering into an agency agreement with us. So you're not paying us to be your agent. I really look at it more as, like a marketing service because you're listing your book to put it in front of our contacts that our agents have been cultivating for 2 decades, and you're getting really a marketing service in a way. So, I mean, to me, again, being in self publishing, a $97 marketing service is, like, some of the best value I've seen in in my career. So I really view it more in that light and not as if you're paying for an agent.
Lindsay Jones [00:45:56]:
And then if we did end up representing you as your agent, there's no charge for that. So as your agent, we we're only making money when we license, license a book. The $97 fee to be in the marketplace, like I said, is is not an agency relationship. It's much more, you know, in line with, like, a marketing service.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:46:19]:
Excellent. Well, thank you. I'm getting some, comments, from, folks that really appreciate the information. So thank you guys, for sharing those comments, etcetera. Lindsay, thank you so much for spending your time with me. This is this is amazing. And, yeah, the affiliate link, or you can use Draft2Digital, to get that 20% off, as well. Lindsay, thanks again so much.
Lindsay Jones [00:46:43]:
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:46:45]:
Awesome. So if you want great insights with wonderful guests like Lindsay to learn a little bit more about things we always wanna learn about in the industry, you can, you can go to d2d.tips/insight for more information. I would strongly recommend that you bookmark, this website. You can bookmark, you can like, you can share, make friends with a like button, bookmark, d2dlive.com. And, of course, if you have not taken advantage of licensing, leveraging your own rights that you have for publishing, getting your ebook or print book out into the market, you can check out, free account at draft2digital.com. Lindsay, thank you much, again. Thank you so much, and I wanna thank everyone for the wonderful questions and comments. And we're gonna leave we're gonna leave this episode, I guess, with a little word from, with a word from, our good friend, Kevin Tumlinson, who created this wonderful video about Draft2Digital Print.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:47:37]:
Thanks again, Lindsay.
Lindsay Jones [00:47:38]:
Thanks.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:47:39]:
Ebooks are great, but there's just something about having your words in print, Something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf, sign for a reader. That's why we created D2D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free beautiful templates to give your book a pro look, and we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books and you can get started right now at draft2digital.com. That's it for this week's self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with your will be author friends, and start, build, and grow your own self publishing career right now at draft2digital.com.