A New Model for Books & Authors?
from Time to Write (blog) by j4london@aol.com (Jurgen Wolff)
"A new model may be emerging for the book business. Bob Miller (founder of Hyperion publishing) is starting a new unit at Harper-Collins that will pay no advance but will share profits 50-50 with writers. It will also pay more attention to online marketing. The catch is that they will deal only with writers who already have a major track record. That cuts down the risk for the publisher but it seems to me that new authors are exactly who should be offered this kind of deal—that way, publisher and author would be sharing the risk and the reward. Maybe the reason they don’t want to do it is that these days advances are so low already that they’re not much of a factor. Still, if this works, it may spread eventually, and if they show the way to innovative online strategies, that will be something we less well-known authors may be able to copy."
2 comments:
The new imprint also won't take returns, which means that the books simply won't be in bookstores.
So, no advance, plus "profit-sharing" (ask movie people how vague the term "profit" is), plus no bookstore, plus "proven track record" means one thing: niche non-fiction.
I suspect this imprint will be 100% authors who have cable TV shows about losing weight, personal finances, or Jesus, with the books being little more than a collection of bullet-point lists about carbs, interest rates, and sin.
thanks nick :)
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