uk

Proof-of-life news post

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Sorry things have been so quiet on the blog lately. I’m not dead, just finishing up a new novel. More details on that soon. In the meantime:

* The Taiwanese edition of Lovecraft Country was published in January by Cité Publishing Group.

* Ediciones Destino is publishing their Spanish edition of Lovecraft Country on March 12.

* The French edition of Lovecraft Country drops March 28 from Presses de la Cité.

* The UK paperback edition of Lovecraft Country will be out May 30 from Picador.

* Next month, I will be coming to New York City for a special event hosted by the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. I’ll be appearing on stage with Victor LaValle at the Film Noir Cinema (122 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn) for a town hall-style discussion entitled “The Shadow Over Lovecraft: Interrogating H.P. Lovecraft’s Racism.” The event is on Tuesday, April 16, from 7:00 to 9:30 PM. Tickets are $15 in advance and $17 at the door.

UK print edition of Lovecraft Country is here

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Hey, look what UPS delivered from my British publisher Picador. The official publication date is tomorrow, January 25th, but because I’m not J.K. Rowling, I’m guessing the actual on-sale date is “whenever the books arrive at the shop,” so you may be able to snag a copy at your local bookstore already. (It’s also available as an ebook.)

In related news, the long-awaited German translation of Lovecraft Country is coming from Carl Hanser Verlag on May 14. Brazilian, Czech, French, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Taiwanese editions are also in the works.

UK ebook of Lovecraft Country now available

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Because of the way English-language publishing rights are divided up between the U.S. and the British Commonwealth, ebooks of my novels are typically unavailable in Commonwealth countries until and unless I find a British publisher. This week’s good news is that I’ve signed a contract with Picador UK, who will be bringing out a British hardcover edition of Lovecraft Country on January 25, 2018. If you want the ebook, though, there’s no need to wait—now that the rights are unlocked, it’s available for immediate download.

The long-awaited German translation will be published by Carl Hanser Verlag on May 15, 2018. Brazilian, Czech, French, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Taiwanese editions are also in the works, though I don’t yet have publication dates for any of those.

Meanwhile, down the rabbit hole…

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Here’s the cover art for the British paperback of Bad Monkeys:

Very different approach from the American version, but I like it. One detail that this scaled-down .jpg doesn’t fully do justice to is the fake wear along the edges, which makes it look like an old storybook retained from childhood. I’m also impressed that they managed to include a Scary Clown on the cover that, while capturing the essence of Scary Clown-ness, doesn’t actually trigger clown-phobia (at least in me).

For those who are curious, the illustrator is Ronald Kurniawan.

Carving up the English-speaking world

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This week I signed and sent off the contract for the U.K. edition of Bad Monkeys, which will be published by Bloomsbury. The most interesting part of the document, as usual, is the territory schedule listing every place in the world where English-language novels are or conceivably could be sold, and specifying which ones are reserved for Bloomsbury, which are reserved for HarperCollins, and which ones are open to competition. Some of it is obvious—the American publisher gets exclusive marketing rights in the U.S., Canada, Guam, and American Samoa, while the Brits get the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand—but some of it is eye-opening or amusing, at least to me.

Markets reserved exclusively for sales of the U.K. edition:
Iraq
Somalia
British Antarctic Territory

Markets open, at least in principle, to both the American and U.K. editions:
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Afghanistan
Cuba
North Korea
“Ex-Yugoslavia” (Yes, that’s literally what it says)

One big change from previous contracts is that India is now open territory. It used to be the exclusive domain of the Brits, but apparently the market got juicy enough that the Americans demanded in (the Brits still have a lock on Pakistan, though—we’re hoping for double-digit sales in Islamabad).

Oh, and if you’re wondering how we can divvy up the marketplace like this without violating anti-trust statutes, the answer, of course, is that copyright is a legal form of monopoly. Remember that the next time you hear a professional writer complaining about Big Oil or the De Beers cartel.

Bad Monkeys update

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For those who have been wondering, my next novel is scheduled for publication by HarperCollins in late July/early August of next year.

Foreign rights sales have been unusually brisk. Although I don’t have dates yet, Bad Monkeys is slated to be published in the U.K., Germany, Brazil, and the Netherlands (the Netherlands publisher is also going to do a Dutch translation of Set This House in Order; can’t wait to see that).