Interesting NYT piece last week about Harper Collins' attempt to upset the status quo.
NYT: New HarperCollins Unit to Try to Cut Writer Advances
NYT: New HarperCollins Unit to Try to Cut Writer Advances
HarperCollins Publishers is forming a new publishing group that will substitute profit-sharing with authors for cash advances and will try to eliminate the costly practice of allowing booksellers to return unsold copies.The correspondent who forwarded me the link knows a thing or two about the publishing biz, to say the least. Here's what he had to say about it.
Half-profits?!? All things old are new again ~ those contracts were standard fare in the mid-19th century. And ending or even merely reducing returns was a fool’s errand that Harcourt, Brace tried years ago with stunning lack of success. In view of the schmaltzy pap that Mr Miller published at Hyperion ~ Five People You Meet in Heaven and Jackie O’s Best-Loved Poems [!] ~ this may not be a publisher to expend much attention upon.
My correspondent's attitude towards pop-lit notwithstanding, he's got some valid points about Harper Collins just remixing some old business models. The first thing that popped into my head was that the promise of "profits" in lieu of an advance was reminiscent of Hollywood production deals: savvy insiders negotiate for a share of the gross. Affluent, star struck orthodontists buy into a movie deal but get fleeced with promises of profits, all of which disappear down the rabbit hole of Studio Accounting. Movies never turn a profit. Duh.
Maybe I'm just the suspicious type.
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1 comment:
Suspicious type? Not at all. You are simply knowledgeable about how creative accounting can be when practiced in Hollywood and allied places. Much has been documented, including one of the more charming stories: costs for colour processing were charged to a film which was in black and white.
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