This news has been widely reported but I thought the news noted on Eoin Purcell's blog today anticipated in significant ways the immediate need for new thinking in Publishing.
Eoin noted a story in The Bookseller that claims Weidenfeld are returning author advances because they (supposedly) don't have the staff to edit the titles. This seems idiotic to me.
My comment:
There is probably more to this but it is hard to believe that if these titles were good on the fundamentals; profitable, message driven, good for the imprint(important titles), that they don't still stand up. Sadly, it probably speaks to the continued lack of focus on business principles that continues to be prevalent in publishing. Rather than cast these books off - assuming they had merit in the first place - seek another model. Take them to POD or a vanity press type model where the publisher and the author share some risk. The announcement that Harpercollins in the US is thinking differently anticipates this announcement from Weidenfeld.
I anticipate we will hear more about Bob's new venture. Good luck to him.
1 comment:
I think you're definitely on to something important.
There is one other significant feature of Miller's "studio" -- simultaneous publication in all formats - an application of Peter Osnos's Caravan project concept.
Relating back to your posting about "What's Next" following the Amazon flap, I think Miller's initiative will be considered a benchmark event for launching the era of direct on-line linking of reader to author/publisher, by-passing the retailing model. The latter won't disappear, of course -people will still want to browse aggregate selections on line or in bricks and mortar - but as the whole concept of search and key words and links becomes embedded in the system, customers will find it easy to link from the aggregators to the direct selling sites and their additional features - or just go there first.
Gene Schwartz
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