International sales on the rise

In 2009 Fremantle Press had one of its most successful years on record for titles sold into foreign territories.

Foreign Rights Manager Clive Newman said Fremantle Press’ international reputation as a successful and innovative publisher from Australia was helping the Press break into new territories on behalf of its authors.

“ The Last Sky by Alice Nelson was licensed to The Sphinx Agency in Egypt and will be the first title from the Press program to be published in the Arabic language when released in 2011,” said Newman.

Two junior fiction titles by Ken Spillman, Jake’s Gigantic List and Jake’s Monster Mess, have been licensed into French language publication with Rageot Editions, a division of Hachette. Both books will also be published by Scholastic India.

The Polish publishing house, Nasza Ksiegarnia, has purchased the rights to Choices by Dianne Wolfer for publication in 2011. Meanwhile advance copies of the Hungarian language edition of Kate McCaffrey’s debut young adult novel, Destroying Avalon, have arrived in the Fremantle Press office.

“We have just sold Michael Thompson’s outstanding new picture book for children, The Other Bears, to South Korea for a Korean language publication in 2011, and the book has been optioned by a company wishing to publish it in Singapore and Indonesia,” said Newman.

Newman said that new relationships forged with international agents, publishers and distributors since 2007 were beginning to pay dividends.

“AmazonUK now distributes our titles to the English-language market in Europe.

“We are very happy with the increased international exposure for our titles and the manner in which the shipments to AmazonUK are building,” said Newman.

Clive Newman will introduce new and forthcoming titles from the Fremantle Press publishing program at the Frankfurt International Book Fair in October 2010.