Foreign Rights

As a printing company, naturally most of our clients are publishers, and as a global company, these publishers are situated all over the world, resulting in books coming off our presses in more than 25 different languages. It seemed an obvious step therefore, to set up an internal rights agency that would act as an intermediary for rights sales between our clients in Japan and our clients in Europe and the US. This has resulted in many successful rights sales both of Japanese titles (in particular manga) to the western market, and of western titles to the Japanese market.

For all enquiries relating to foreign rights, please contact our dedicated team at copyrights@toppan.co.uk.

Services Offered

Experienced, bilingual staff (English-Japanese) based in London, New York and Tokyo are on hand to offer a range of services;

• Rights availability checks
• Finding a suitable publisher in Japan for a western title, and vice versa
• Assistance with negotiating terms of coedition or data and royalty deals
• Assistance with the transfer of data between publishers and communication issues
• Assistance with any issues related to payment and tax

We also have a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and our foreign rights team are present at all of the major book fairs around the world to meet with clients and discuss potential rights sales.

Commission-Free

With deals which result in Toppan receiving a printing contract, no fee is charged for the foreign rights service.  However, for coedition deals where the publisher’s preferred printer is used, we do charge a small commission in line with other foreign rights agents.  Please feel free however to contact our sales team who would be happy to give you a quote for printing with Toppan, and see the testimonies above for proof of our quality.

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Recent Contracts

At the London office we are always on the look out for books that would sell well in Japan, and our frequent contact and good relations with dozens of European publishers leads to success stories like the ones below.

	Pirates by John Matthews The original publisher of this title, Carlton Publishing has sold over 1 million copies of the book worldwide, and after striking a coedition deal with Iwasaki-shoten through Toppan, they have sold many more in Japan.  A reprint of the Japanese version is already under discussion.
	NASA: The Complete Illustrated History by Michael Gorn & Buzz Aldrin Published first by Merrell in the UK, this title was introduced by Toppan to Transworld Japan who published it in 2006.
	Digital Retro   by Gordon Laing Originally published by Ivy Press in the UK in 2005, it was published in 2006 by Transworld Japan, again using Toppan’s foreign rights services.
	Farmyard Animals and Stroller Softies The creation of Norwegian publishing house, Rettore, these baby titles were spotted at a book fair by Toppan’s foreign rights team, and introduced to Sekaibunka who happily published them in Japan.

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