Another Publishing Change on The Horizon
Today's newspaper and some media newsletters have picked up on the story that Harper Collins has announced that they are starting a new division, headed by Bob Miller. Miller is the former founder and president of Hyperion, the publishing arm of Disney that deals with adult books, a lot of them by celebrities.
This new concept will have authors in some sort of 50/50 deal with the publisher. No advance. The profits are split down the middle. This leads to a whole host of questions. For example: Does the author have to put up the money for half the production costs? Does the author have to foot half the monthly bill for an expensive book publicist? For Marketing? Is this Print-On-Demand? Download to Reader? There was something said about that sort of online thing perhaps being available when a hard cover was purchased. And there was something about instituting a No Returns policy for the books.
The celebrities and best-selling authors can afford the investment but what about midlist authors? Are they going to throw their life savings into a book that they will then spend time writing? And time is money. What will these authors live on while writing? The paltry advance (and then you only get half of it on signing) most midlist author receive is barely enough to sustain an author for the time it takes to write a book. How many can afford to take the time to write without any sort of compensation? The non-fiction author already has indexing charged against their royalties.
Maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe it can be done with young enough authors who can work a full-time job and do the full-time work of writing a book. Maybe they're driven enough to do it and can get by on precious little sleep.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
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Belle Yang says:
Scary
And I was complaining that I was paid only half of what I was paid 10 years ago. I should consider myself lucky I wasn't given theis 50-50 deal.
What can we as writers do about this trend? Any suggestions, Darlene?
Darlene Arden says:
New Trend?
Hi Belle,
I'm not sure if it's a trend but an alarm certainly went off in my head! They haven't published their first book yet but it will be interesting to watch and see. I can't afford to do this if it means waiting for the usual 1/2 on signing,1/2 on delivery and acceptance. How are we supposed to eat? Buy gas? Pay for health insurance? On what?! If I were independently wealthy it wouldn't matter. If I were a celebrity, it wouldn't matter. But I'm not.
I wish I had a solution. I think we should watch and see if it becomes a trend. I wonder how our agents feel about this? I wonder if there's a way in which literary agents could be polled? Or would they be afraid to commit to a comment for fear of losing this imprint as a possible venue for clients?
I'd love to hear any ideas that anyone else has, any thoughts on this new frontier. I just don't know how many people will read my blog and comment.
Thank you so much for finding this, Belle, and for caring about the issue.
Warmly,
Darlene
Belle Yang says:
Hi, Darlene--
My source say:
Yes; big news ... Miller is known as an innovative thinker and he jumped from Hyperion (where he was CEO) to HarperCollins.
Not to worry, though ... I do NOT see this (50/50 share, etc.) as a trend that's necessarily going to work (eccept for perhaps the target market) or last.
As below, he has a very distinct market in mind (short, low priced hardcovers for new authors).
The industry is seemingly so screwed up, you know I admire him for thinking out of the box and taking chances -- he's talking about selling on non-returnable terms and directly to consumers via the internet.
Actually, he reminds me of the elder Jovanovich in that he's trying some new paradigms in the industry ...
Bob Miller; head of "publishing studio" formerly of HYPERION and chairman of AAP where he acquired (Maria Shriver's JUST WHO WILL YOU BE; Teri Hatcher's BURNT TOAST; Brook Shields' memoir about post-partum depression; inspirational advice, sayings and anecdotes from Freds Rogers; Kris Kristofferson's memoir; Fred Rogers' posthumous collection THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MISTER ROGERS, gathering inspirational sayings, advice, and anecdotes from his speeches, letters, and interviews; memoir of lead singer from Red Hot Chili Peppers, BOB HOPE: My Life in Jokes; Barbara De Angelis and SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE series)
More on Miller
Bob Miller's new experimental start-up with HarperCollins took shape quickly after a casual discussion over drinks with Harper ceo Jane Friedman at the end of February. Miller says that he was "feeling restless and didn't know what next mountain to climb" and was "talking about my frustration with the paradigms in this business." He explained to Friedman how we would theoretically "do it all over again" and she encouraged him to put that plan into action. "I realized this was my time," Miller says.
On some of the specific intentions of the new line, a 50/50 profit share with authors (and minimal advances) is a central tenet. But the idea of selling everything on a non-returnable basis was overstated in a WSJ report. Miller says "I definitely want to sell non-returnable if possible" particularly since that maximizes the profits to be shared and "the goal is to try and stop wasting money on things that don't actually help sell books." But he recognizes that conversations with retailers are an essential element of such a plan and that the process may "evolve after we start."
As Miller notes, publishing today is "a race for margin" and "the current model is pretty broken," adding that "it's too tempting not to try" to improve on that paradigm.
If you intuited that the statement in the press release expressing the intention of "taking full advantage of the internet for sales, marketing and distribution" signals a desire for more direct selling online, then you were correct. "Definitely one of the things we want to experiment with is direct selling to consumers," Miller told us, along with working in partnership with a variety of internet booksellers and other entities. He also hopes to "experiment with selling other formats" so that, for example, "people get the e-book and the audiobook with their purchase" of a print book.
Miller sees his "studio" -- called that so as "to not be trapped by the definitions that already exist for publishing companies we know" -- as comprising a "handful" of dedicated staff focused on "mostly nonfiction" titles. While recognizing that "an established author who is already making more than the publisher probably wouldn't be interested" in the joint profit-sharing model, he adds that "I'd love it if established authors want to try off-the-beaten track" projects and experiments with the new venture. He says that "short low-price hardcovers" are "where I think the market is, and where I've had repeated success," ranging from short books by David Halberstam and Steve Martin to FISH and the Mitch Albom titles. Which also allows for the wide-ranging experimentation to include books that are longer than magazine articles but shorter than conventional book titles.
Darlene Arden says:
Thank You, Belle!
And please thank your source for me. It's very interesting. I wonder how much of the cost he's expecting the newbie author to absorb? Or if it's just for the well-known, the people he has a track record for publishing. I can't think of any mid-list authors associated with Hyperion.
Warmly,
Darlene
Eric Nichols says:
Deja Vu all over again
A few years before he died (he wrote relatively little AFTER he died) Frank Zappa wrote a piece called the "Record Company Hose Job." He described (quite elegantly, I might add) how the record labels were gradually pushing more of the risk and less of the profits onto the actual artists. I see a very disconcerting parallel in this "new idea," in the publishing world, which is actually just an old clever way of shafting the creative producer.
Just as musicians have been bailing out of the major record labels in droves in favor of small "indies," I see this as an inevitable trend for future writers. The small publisher is on the way up. Perhaps this might, after the dust settles, the best thing to ever happen to writers...publishing houses actually willing to take a risk. Time will tell.
Eric
Darlene Arden says:
Thanks, Eric, for your interesting analogy
Your points are well-taken. I hope this doesn't become a trend. I suspect the Indies are a good place to be. They might be more enthusiastic about pushing new titles. It does no good to write a book if no one knows about it. I realize that it is the other half of the author's job to promote their books but we need help and we need it to come from someone who is motivated to help us.
Darlene