If you are Canadian must your book be published by a Canadian publisher?

by Veronica
(Vancouver)

I am making a niche vegan cookbook, they are very popular right now with movies like Forks Over Knives and Bill Clinton talking about adopting a plant based diet for health and reversing heart disease.

The thing is, all of the cookbooks that are doing well are published by American publishers. Not really any of the big ones, but some medium sized and small ones.

My market is Americans, I have an online company that already markets this information via my website and ebooks, but I want a published cookbook as well.

So my question is, can I be a Canadian and pitch my book to the medium/smaller publishing houses (who on their website say they are taking submissions for cookbooks and health non fiction book proposals)?

Is there any problem with this? The Canadian market is just too small, I want to sell on Amazon.com and then maybe Amazon.ca will pick up my book.

ANSWER

You do not have to be American to pitch to American publishers. Normally you would look for a Canadian agent or publisher, who would then sell foreign rights to a US publisher.

The larger US market also means greater competition, and a Canadian publisher or agent is likely in a better position than you are to find an interested American publisher, so it can be advantageous to secure Canadian publication first.

However, it is not unusual for Canadians to publish outside the country before ever being published in Canada, and if you can interest a US publisher, there is nothing at all to stop you from doing so.