Audio Book frustration!

As most of you probably aware, I’m a bit of an audio book nerd! 😀

With living outside of the USA (in my case the UK), we do not have the same access to printed, digital or audio formats that are so readily available to the American consumers.

Having asked a number of authors about their books in audio and whether they would be available intenationally. Most have been amazingly good and have tried to find out for me…thank you all, it is very much appreciated.

So I have been sifting through information on the web about Copyrights, contracts and the whole…Who, What, Where, When and How.

Lets face it….I’m a cozy reader! 🙂

And this is the information I have gleened.

All this is from a site for producing audio books…called ACX.   http://www.acx.com/

What do you mean by ‘Rights Holder’?

ACX is a marketplace where authors, literary agents, publishers, and other Rights Holders can connect with narrators, engineers, recording studios, and other Producers capable of producing a finished audiobook. The result: More audiobooks will be made.

How do I know if I have the rights to my book?

Check the contract for your book. It should state whether digital audio rights (or simply “audio rights” or “all rights”) were already granted to the publisher. If you’re still not 100% certain about what the contract says—and please be completely certain—call your agent or lawyer and inquire.

How do I know what territory rights I have for my book?

If you’re not completely certain which territory rights you have, check your contracts and/or ask your agent.

Books are often published with territory restrictions. In other words, they’re licensed to be sold only in a specific region. Also, your book may be licensed in more than one area or territory, by more than one publishing house.

I don’t hold my audio rights. Do I have any options for making an audiobook?

You or your agent should read your contract to determine who owns the audio rights. If the publisher holds the rights and has not produced your book as an audiobook, and if they don’t have plans to do so in the immediate future, you should request that your title be added to ACX—by either you or the publisher. Note that you will have to contact the publisher and inquire as to whether they’d be interested in posting the book on ACX as well.

My conclusions:

Informative, facinating and fustrating…all in equal measures!

The ‘Territory rights’ is the one that gets me most frustrated!

Even though we have access to books published in the USA ‘territory’, they are readily available to us outside the ‘territory’ indicated (raised eyebrows.  Rules for one, another rule for others…comes to mind!), via various selling establishments like Amazon (worldwide sites), The Book Depository, Wordery and others.

But the audio editions for the most part are not available.   Argh!

I would be pulling my hair out…if I had any to pull!  lol

But I’m a lot more aware on the process an author goes through to get their work published.

Authors…if you can on your next contract, get the territories widened and include retaining the audio rights.