The employees of a literary agency are by definition specialist staff. Their
individual areas of responsibility may be divided by function (for example,
translation rights, film rights) or by author. Within a medium-to-large-size
publishing house, a specialist rights department is advisable, even if it starts
as a single person with a computer and a simple record-keeping system. The
optimum size of a rights department will depend on the size of the list and
the range of possible rights to be sold, as well as the perceived importance
of the rights function to the company. In a very small or very new publishing
house, it may well be impossible to devote the entire time of even one member
of staff to the rights function, and in such cases rights deals may have to be
handled on an ad hoc basis by staff whose role is primarily in editorial, promotion,
sales or perhaps production work. However, as the scale of rights business
expands, it will be important to dedicate more time and resources to proactive
work in this area. Whoever handles the rights, it is important for them to
have access to key information on what rights are available to handle, and
also whether rights sales may be complicated by the fact that the work includes
third-party copyright material for which permission may be limited to the
original edition and would have to be recleared for onward licences; this
information can be complex and is normally held in the location of first publication
of the book concerned; it may have some bearing on whether it is wise
to depute overseas staff (e.g. sales staff in the local office of a multinational)