A new imprint from HarperCollins plans to publish 25 “short” books a year at competitive prices with “nonreturnable shipments to stores and lowered money to authors up front in exchange for increased profit sharing.”
Robert S. Miller will lead this initiative which has yet to be named. He said, “Our goal will be to effectively publish books that might not otherwise emerge in an increasingly ‘big book’ environment, an environment in which established authors are under enormous pressure to top their previous successes, while new authors are finding it harder and harder to be published at all.”
Miller hopes to convince booksellers they need to take on more risk for the books they order instead of leaving the risk entirely to publishers. The rate of return is “around 40 percent.” Sounds like Miller has an uphill battle to fight. (via Books, Inq)
More on this from writer Roger Simon.
They’ve made Narnia into a pop-up book with,