Update: Rights for De Correspondent’s first book sold in 10 countries

Back in April, I wrote about how newspapers should double as full-service publishing houses for their authors.

I based that advice on our experience with The Correspondent — the Dutch ad-free journalism platform with more than 47k paying members — where we have had two books on the Dutch bestsellers list and handle over a thousand speaking requests for our writers every year.

In the first book we published, Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman called for a return to utopian thinking. We’re glad to announce that the translation rights have been acquired in 10 countries.

How did all these publishers hear about us?

First we tried launching the English translation ourselves.That went well, with shoutouts from Steven Pinker and Zygmunt Bauman, coverage in The Guardian and WSJ, and close to 6,000 copies sold through Amazon.

But then we asked ourselves: If we can pull this off with virtually no network or brand recognition in the U.S., what would happen if we partnered with an established American publisher to spread Bregman’s ideas? And shouldn’t we tell this story in as many languages as possible?

Article from the daily Frankfurter Buchmesse paper

So Milou Klein Lankhorst, who oversees The Correspondent’s book publishing operations, set out in search of an agent, and found one in the splendid Rebecca Carter of Janklow & Nesbit. Together they went to the world’s biggest book fair in Frankfurt, Germany. The results were astonishing.

Little, Brown and Company pre-empted the U.S. rights, Bloomsbury won the U.K. rights in an auction, and Rowohlt acquired the German rights. Utopia for Realists will also be published in France, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and South Korea.

We will continue to manage all our Dutch publishing efforts ourselves, but we’re grateful for the help from these fantastic publishing houses to spread Rutger Bregman’s ideas all over the world.

By the way, The Correspondent translates our best stories to English. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive them in your inbox.