If you are interested in being involved in this initiative and/or receiving updates on progress or attending
discussion meetings regarding implementation, please email: info@bisg.org and kliemannkris@gmail.com
**This short article was published by BISG in September of 2024. It is included here to give context to
the two pages of draft proposed fields for a Standard Royalty Statement for translation rights that
immediately follow.
Summary: Royalty statements, a critical piece of publishing communication, can be time consuming and
confusing. The BISG Rights Committee working group has worked diligently on creating an outline for a
set of best practices and proposed standards.
Written by: Kris Kliemann and Sharon Haig
As the annual Frankfurt Book Fair rapidly approaches, considerations around best practices for licensing
translation rights are in the air. Many rights directors for publishers and literary agents are prepping
rights guides and working on pitches about their best books. Many are feeling hopeful about the
possibility that ‘this one’ will be a big hit in multiple languages, and that it will sell well not only in the
author’s home language and territory, but find an audience far beyond, perhaps making a profound
difference around the world.
Those who “know,” know that licensing translation rights is a long game… a set-up of the dominoes that
will fall in a perfect pattern one-by-one as editors around the world hear about the book, read that
partial manuscript, have their publication offers negotiated and accepted, sign a contract, and, after
finding just the right translator, publish that fine book.
It is an exciting process, necessarily complex at every stage, and fraught with critical follow ups, including
the excitement after publication in a new language, when rights holders eagerly await the arrival of
royalty statements from the translation publisher. How many copies have sold? Have the terms of the
translation contract (advances, royalty rates, etc.) yielded actual earnings? Is the book a success in terms
of readership, reviews, and additional income for the original publishing house, the literary agent, the
author? These reports—royalty statements—are one of the measures of success and a critical piece of
publishing communication.
Unfortunately, these important reports are too often incomplete, incorrect, late in arriving, and a time-
consuming pain point for both the sender and the receiver. Questions about the details are inefficient
and tedious – and ultimately, the hoped-for insights that can come from clear reporting simply don’t
materialize. If we can’t collect, collate, and analyze the information, we don’t have the ability to act on
knowledge about markets in a way that can affect future business positively—for that title, for that
author, and even for other books and authors in that genre and market.
BISG is very sensitive to this challenge. In an attempt to quantify these pain points around statements,
the organization's Rights Committee conducted a survey to solicit feedback about these pain points. One
of the more startling findings resulted from the question about actual time spent reviewing statements
(see respondent charts below). Extrapolating the average time spent reviewing statements
against the number of statements received, the cumulative estimate of time these 41 respondents spent
discussion meetings regarding implementation, please email: info@bisg.org and kliemannkris@gmail.com
**This short article was published by BISG in September of 2024. It is included here to give context to
the two pages of draft proposed fields for a Standard Royalty Statement for translation rights that
immediately follow.
Summary: Royalty statements, a critical piece of publishing communication, can be time consuming and
confusing. The BISG Rights Committee working group has worked diligently on creating an outline for a
set of best practices and proposed standards.
Written by: Kris Kliemann and Sharon Haig
As the annual Frankfurt Book Fair rapidly approaches, considerations around best practices for licensing
translation rights are in the air. Many rights directors for publishers and literary agents are prepping
rights guides and working on pitches about their best books. Many are feeling hopeful about the
possibility that ‘this one’ will be a big hit in multiple languages, and that it will sell well not only in the
author’s home language and territory, but find an audience far beyond, perhaps making a profound
difference around the world.
Those who “know,” know that licensing translation rights is a long game… a set-up of the dominoes that
will fall in a perfect pattern one-by-one as editors around the world hear about the book, read that
partial manuscript, have their publication offers negotiated and accepted, sign a contract, and, after
finding just the right translator, publish that fine book.
It is an exciting process, necessarily complex at every stage, and fraught with critical follow ups, including
the excitement after publication in a new language, when rights holders eagerly await the arrival of
royalty statements from the translation publisher. How many copies have sold? Have the terms of the
translation contract (advances, royalty rates, etc.) yielded actual earnings? Is the book a success in terms
of readership, reviews, and additional income for the original publishing house, the literary agent, the
author? These reports—royalty statements—are one of the measures of success and a critical piece of
publishing communication.
Unfortunately, these important reports are too often incomplete, incorrect, late in arriving, and a time-
consuming pain point for both the sender and the receiver. Questions about the details are inefficient
and tedious – and ultimately, the hoped-for insights that can come from clear reporting simply don’t
materialize. If we can’t collect, collate, and analyze the information, we don’t have the ability to act on
knowledge about markets in a way that can affect future business positively—for that title, for that
author, and even for other books and authors in that genre and market.
BISG is very sensitive to this challenge. In an attempt to quantify these pain points around statements,
the organization's Rights Committee conducted a survey to solicit feedback about these pain points. One
of the more startling findings resulted from the question about actual time spent reviewing statements
(see respondent charts below). Extrapolating the average time spent reviewing statements
against the number of statements received, the cumulative estimate of time these 41 respondents spent