How can a foreigner publish a book in the U.S.?
Open question, two possible answers.1 – Traditional PublishingAny publisher can publish the works of an author regardless (pending international restrictions of the respective countries) their location. Most publishers have agreements with distribution outlets to allow this to happen, but they usually stick to distribution in the language of the work. So to distribute in the US, find a publisher who publishes in that market.2 – Self-PublishingSimilar to the above, you will need to find a distribution channel that publishes for you in the US (most do), but the same international sanctions may cause issues. There are a number of channels that will push the publication to the US, but they may not be advantageous for they do not usually allow for the standard 40% mark up most retail stores demand on printed books. Also, they usually don’t allow for returns of un-purchased books, thus dropping your exposure to the market.Basically, your best avenue is to find a publisher to push the work into the market place.
Where can one buy foreign books in China?
In big cities you can find many people selling second books on street corners, especially in a university campus. About 10% or less will be foreign, usually English books. When you go to some bigger book stores you will also find a section dedicated to English books.Usually it’s easy to find English literature because this will be part of the school subjects for Chinese students. What is more difficult to find is other works of fiction e.g. Science Fiction and so on.What I learned to do is to look at online stores likeAmazon ChinaDangDangYou can search for foreign books on these website. What I do is ask my Chinese friend to buy the books. Once he gives them to me I usually pay him cash or by Wechat Wallet. This is the easiest way to find because that are not outright banned in China.
What is the most unbiased book on American history?
Of course “bias” has various meanings; professional historians have legitimate biases that cause them to think some thinks are less important than others and thus, since space is at a premium, they leave things out. In recent years efforts to include women’s history, the history of various rights’ movements, environmental and labor history, technological change, etc. have been made so there are many volumes that are fair and balanced now.One alternative is to read more than one so you can read from the right, read "A Patriot's history of the United States."From the left, read "A People's history of the United States."Samuel Elliot Morison's "Oxford History of the American People" works if you don’t want to take the time to read multiple authors.There really is too much American history to cover in one book so follow up with your interests, the American Revolution, the Civil War, industrialization, WWII, Native Amerindians, the civil rights movements, etc.
What book can help me understand American culture?
Democracy in America by Alexis DeTocqueville. Though written in America's early days, it's continuing popularity is no doubt due to the fact that is says something (actually many things) essential about the American character.
Is it complicated for a foreigner to publish a book in the USA or the UK?
Nope, it’s not particularly complicated for foreigners to publish in the U.S. or U.K., at least not on the American or British end.The only issues I can think of are technical ones — how you will receive payment, for example. U.S. publishers are mostly set up to only do business in dollars, so you’ll need some way to convert that. (It works the other way, too — I once got a British royalty payment in pounds where my bank’s fee for converting it to dollars would have been more than the entire amount of the cheque.)Politically, the U.S. (despite what you may hear) doesn’t work like that. All American publishers care about is whether they’ll make money. Sometimes politics does come into that, though — a friend of mine (a native-born American and not a Muslim) wrote a novel where the hero was a Muslim extremist (and stayed a Muslim extremist, he didn’t “learn better” or anything), and discovered that she couldn’t find a publisher that would touch it, on the grounds that readers wouldn’t buy it because of the character’s beliefs.I can’t speak for the UK.As for the chances compared to native authors, if you look at just numbers, the odds stink for anyone, regardless of national origin. At least 90% of submissions to traditional publishers are rejected, and those rejections are all based on, “Will this sell well enough to make money for us?” None have anything to do with the author’s residence. If anything, an exotic origin may work in a writer’s favor; some publishers like to show their cosmopolitan nature by publishing authors from, say, Nigeria or Peru.
What are good, accessible books on American history in terms of government, foreign policy, and national defense?
This is already a long list, and several I will add to the pile for me to read.To echo Rebecca Simon and Alexandra Casuso Zinn's Peoples History of United States is outstanding.Four reasons I recommend it:It is good: very readable, thought-provoking.It is comprehensive: from Columbus to 1992 (in my edition; they might be an update?) and in one volume it covers most of the topics - then you could use the excellent suggestions above to dive in deeper in particular areas.It is complete in a different sense: it discusses the impact of events on ordinary people, and on those often not discussed: slaves, new immigrants, native americans, the poor, etcIt is a different perspective. It is unashamedly left-wing, and as the title implies looks at "The people's eye view." You may agree or not but as well as the familiar story, you will get something extra: something to think about or discuss. There were a number of chapters where I went 'I never knew that had happened', or 'Golly - I had never thought of it thast way before...' Why bother reading a book unless it makes you think, or gives you something to talk about?I would also recommend Lies My Teacher Told me by James Loewen.This is a concise history of the USA: the interesting twist is that is describes "What everyone knows" - the popular myth, and what is taught in High School -- and the contrasts that to "What really happened" and the history (controversy) that often is wholly different to the familiar stories.There is a whole second layer which is why popular understanding of history, and the way it is taught in schools is so wholly different to what academics would accept or what is taught in university. There is a somewhat disturbing discussion on how politicized school text books are, and how this borders on propaganda. The remark in question 'worst high school program ever' Loewen argues this is not accidental: knowing history tells you how people can make changes to established order & power structure. Making people think history is boring, or telling a version where change is 'inevitable' and good truimphs will have the effect of making people less informed or less motivated to fight for changes themselves.
How can a foreigner start a business in the USA?
It is possible on an E2 nonimmigrant visa, or an immigrant E5. The E5 has specific investment minimums, the 500,000/1,000,000. The nonimmigrant E2 does not. your investment has to be considered substantial, but in relationship to the size of the business, along with many other requirements. either way, you would need to get a good immigration attorney to help you with the paperwork, however, neither requires a US partner.
Why doesn't Amazon allow a US account to purchase foreign books via Kindle?
As others have mentioned, the regional nature of book licensing makes this a necessity.Ironically, you can buy a foreign print book much more easily than you can buy a foreign e-book. It has to do with the assumed point of sale. When you're buying a print book, the point of sale is considered to be the warehouse in the foreign country that ships you the book. Since the book is being sold in the foreign country, it's perfectly legal for them to drop it in the mail and send it off to you. A lot of copies of the early Harry Potter books were sold this way when Scholastic dropped the ball on getting them available in the US in a timely manner. (This is why the third book was only delayed a couple of months and all books in the series from #4 on were simultaneously released.)But when an e-book is sold, the point of sale is considered to be the computer or e-reading device that buys it. So only computers in the country where it's licensed can legally buy it. I still don't understand why they don't consider the server to be the point of sale the way they do warehouses for physical books; I've never been able to get an adequate answer for that. I guess that's just how the laws evolved.(The funny thing is that, for the first ten years of commercial e-books' existence, nobody bothered to enforce regional restrictions on them. People from all over the world bought US e-books from eReader and Fictionwise all the way up until 2009, when someone finally noticed that was violating the licensing agreements. [eReader enforcing geographical restrictions]) It doesn't look like regional licensing will end any time soon. For one thing, it's baked into existing contracts going back decades, because for print books it made sense. Almost no publisher has the necessary physical resources to print, market, and ship books in all regions of the world. Furthermore, authors (such as Charlie Stross: Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?) can make more money selling rights region by region. Publishers in different countries are willing to pay more for their own chunk of rights, when tallied as a whole, than any one publisher is to pay for world rights. Stross says he gets 30% more money by shrewdly parceling out regional rights, and that ain't chicken feed.