Long-time industry vet Bob Miller has just joined up with HarperCollins to jumpstart a new publishing imprint. However, the venture itself is not what’s capturing headlines. It’s the economic choices for an author that’s turning heads:

1. There are no advances on books. Authors will sacrifice book advances to gain higher profits when their books sell.
   
   
2. There will be no returns accepted from booksellers. Basically, when a book retailer doesn’t sell their copies of the book within a certain timeframe, they return the unsold books to the publisher. Miller is saying no to this age-old concept.

The positive side to no advances is that publishers will be able to take more risks on authors who have no history of sales. Publishers can pick-up more authors, in theory, allowing for more publishing opportunities. However, we all know that authors spend a great deal of time and money on their own books. To offset the lack of an advance, this publisher is offering authors a percentage of the profits. However, with little money (on the author side) for marketing, if the book is unsuccessful, their potentially high profits mean nothing. In other words, advances are a reward that help many authors infuse money into the marketing and selling of their own books: without the extra capital, there is a fear that sales may fall flat.

As for the no-return policy, once again, opinions are split. Those in support say that the book industry is the only place this ability to return products exists and that it’s about time someone did something to fight it. Others say the ancient return policy is too institutionalized to see change. If this is so, then booksellers simply won’t pick up the books marketed to them on a no-return basis. This means that Miller’s new imprint will be quickly exiled from the book industry.

Views from an Industry Insider:

Laine Cunningham has had over 15 years experience in the publishing field. From author to editor to consultant, she has a wide range of perspectives when it comes to the book industry. She is currently the owner of Writer’s Resource, an editing and consulting service for fiction and nonfiction authors.

Is it fair to exchange author advances for more share of the profit later on?

No. This is unequivocally wrong. Unless Mr. Miller will work for free for the next four years (a pretty sound estimate of the time it takes for an author to write a book, obtain a publishing contract and see it on the shelves) with the understanding that he will get paid a percentage of what the new imprint brings in, there’s no way to claim that this arrangement is fair.

Are readers likely to get more and better books from this concept or will they get ripped off?

Even HarperCollins has said that only specific kinds of books will be published through this imprint. Specifically, they mentioned first-time authors…so you see how low first-time talent is to the company that relies on writers to make them money. They also mentioned books that well-known authors might not have been able to get published before they hit it big. So that would be the novels that were “retired” in the files for any number of reasons, most often because the writing simply wasn’t ready to hit it big. Does anyone need to look deeper than that to understand that even HarperCollins knows these titles will be treated as substandard by the very company putting them out?

Will mid-list or new authors stand to make more or less money from this concept?

Less, less, less! How’s zero sound? Because that’s what most authors make on royalties…even authors who are strong mid-list producers, even those who have name cache and a dozen titles in print. Publishers are good at either pushing a book into the market or leaving it to languish. One of the primary signals they send can be measured by how many zeroes are in the advance. It’s why the six-figure sale is so critical…not because making six figures makes the author wealthy but because an author has to net a six figure advance in order to ensure that the publisher will support the book with an appropriate marketing plan. The lower the advance, the less the author can count on the publisher for marketing assistance. An advance of zero dollars logically means zero dollars spent on marketing.

How viable is the ability to for booksellers to return unsold books in today’s economy and environment? Should this concept remain or be phased out?

Without a doubt, this concept should be struck from the books in a single sweep. Unfortunately it is a revolutionary concept and will take a near-revolt to happen. Retailers in every other industry know it is their responsibility to sell every item they order. If they don’t, they go out of business. Publishers need to stop pulping up to 40% of the books they print, which is the average for every print run made today. If 40% of cars were crushed every year because they went unsold, there would be a public outcry about the sheer environmental impact. But so few people understand how drastic the burden is on publishers so nothing is ever said, booksellers won’t accept books that can’t be returned, and everyone goes on sipping their four-dollar coffees while ignoring the products they’re supposedly there to consume.

Perhaps it’s time for the green movement to step in. I don’t see any other way for the industry to change at this point except for pressures to be put on them from outside. Publishers have tried in the past to stop accepting returns, and the pressures put on them from booksellers made the effort fail. Like I said, this issue will need a revolution to overthrow it.

Questions to consider: