TELLING THE STORY OF BOOK LICENSING

Licensing a book from an overseas publisher for the Thai market can bring exposure and revenue, but is there much money to be made?
Thailand is a small market in global terms, yet although production costs are relatively low the revenues from book sales are equally low.
Here is an example for using the New York Times bestselling The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman. The RRP in the U.S. is $14.95. In the U.K. is sells for £6.99 ($11.15 approx.). The translated Thai language edition sells for 179 Thai baht – equivalent to approx. $5.35.
In this case the Thai publisher (Amarin) will have footed the costs for translation and printing, and will likely have to surrender up to 50 per cent of the cover price as commission to the bookstore. Selling 300 copies might only bring in $800 for the Thai publisher, and that’s without production, translating and marketing costs, and the all important royalty payment to the overseas publisher.
Using this example you can see that, as a publisher, you need to be able to sell quite a few books to make money from licensing an overseas book in Thailand - and even then don't expect to get rich from one or two books.