News Corp buys Harlequin

[BearMountainBooks]

This may have been reported already elsewhere? But it looks like Harlequin is now part of News Corp. and will be under the HarperCollins imprint/control. I wonder if this means those books will be on Scribd and be discounted now and then...

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27261500

edited to add this related article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygr...three-reasons/

[din155]

just for 455 canadian dollars!!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by din155

just for 455 canadian dollars!!

They got took!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

This may have been reported already elsewhere?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27261500

There was a thread earlier today but it vanished around noon, eastern.

I had pointed out that it was expected that they'd have to sell, given their dependency on MMPBs and their toxic licensing terms.

I wonder what News corp thinks now that they've bought themselves a rrvived lawsuit headed go trial.

Of course, the sale needs Canadian govt approval so its not 100% certain it'll be approved.

Anyway, there's other mid-range trad pubs that are or will be in play soon enough. Kensington and S&S, for starters.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There was a thread earlier today but it vanished around noon, eastern.

I had pointed out that it was expected that they'd have to sell, given their dependency on MMPBs and their toxic licensing terms.

I wonder what News corp thinks now that they've bought themselves a rrvived lawsuit headed go trial.

Of course, the sale needs Canadian govt approval so its not 100% certain it'll be approved.

Anyway, there's other mid-range trad pubs that are or will be in play soon enough. Kensington and S&S, for starters.

What was interesting to me was the somewhat low price and the part that said Harlequin struggled to make the switch/money from digital. Since their guidelines are so dependent on formulas, you'd think they would be able to easily come up with a publishing formula that would work to get the books out and into the hands of readers. Also found it interesting that naria.com was selling direct to consumers. I suspect we will see more of that type of thing as publishers decide they have to profit and don't want to deal with a middle man.

[BearMountainBooks]

Whoops, the Narnia stuff was in a different article (which actually does a better job with this story overall.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygr...three-reasons/

[fjtorres]

They also used to do subscriptions.
Unlike the other corporate publishers they to understand their readers.

Their problem is at the other end, with authors and their price structure: their books sold because they were cheap diversions but the only reason they were cheap was that they've been paying substandard advances and royalties for years. That worked when it was just them and Kensington. Once their authors did the KDP math and compared getting $0.28 per $5 paperback (and $0.06) per ebook to getting $0.50-$2.10 by going Indie, the writing was on the wall.
Realistically, I'm not sure what HC can do to restore them to profitability than to milk the backlist for all the ebooks it's worth, formula or no formula, the demand for their core product isn't enough to cover their overhead.

Other than their backlist and the brand, the biggest asset HQ has is their LUNA imprint. And that is a specialty/niche operation.

It'll be interesting what Murdock's minions make of HQ if the deal is approved.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They also used to do subscriptions.
Unlike the other corporate publishers they to understand their readers.

Their problem is at the other end, with authors and their price structure: their books sold because they were cheap diversions but the only reason they were cheap was that they've been paying substandard advances and royalties for years. That worked when it was just them and Kensington. Once their authors did the KDP math and compared getting $0.28 per $5 paperback (and $0.06) per ebook to getting $0.50-$2.10 by going Indie, the writing was on the wall.
Realistically, I'm not sure what HC can do to restore them to profitability than to milk the backlist for all the ebooks it's worth, formula or no formula, the demand for their core product isn't enough to cover their overhead.

Other than their backlist and the brand, the biggest asset HQ has is their LUNA imprint. And that is a specialty/niche operation.

It'll be interesting what Murdock's minions make of HQ if the deal is approved.

Agreed. A lot of authors used them as a "foot in the door, see I've been published, now I'm going to get an agent or have agent send to a better paying publisher."

But for that particular niche, I think indie is the way to go. Luna is a relatively new imprint and happens to be popular at the moment, but from what I see authors still use it as a stepping stone.

It may continue to serve that purpose or they may (as they kind of tried in the past) try to sell author services to keep some income and be able to groom some authors to other imprints.

One thing they can do is be totally digital unless a book sells well. Other companies are doing that and it does cut costs. For all I know they already have a line that is totally digital. I don't recall...I know Carina Press has digital only unless sales reach X. ... Can't think if Avon has that too...

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

One thing they can do is be totally digital unless a book sells well. Other companies are doing that and it does cut costs. For all I know they already have a line that is totally digital. I don't recall...I know Carina Press has digital only unless sales reach X. ... Can't think if Avon has that too...

I thought Carina is the HQN digital-only line.

I'm surprised they said they had issues going digital, because they were one of the first to actually release everything digital.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Luna is a relatively new imprint and happens to be popular at the moment, but from what I see authors still use it as a stepping stone.

It may continue to serve that purpose or they may (as they kind of tried in the past) try to sell author services to keep some income and be able to groom some authors to other imprints.

AFAIK they killed off Luna (around November 2013), and are moving the books to other lines. For example Michele Sagara's Elantra series has been moved to Mira for the next release.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I thought Carina is the HQN digital-only line.

I'm surprised they said they had issues going digital, because they were one of the first to actually release everything digital.

I think their issues going digital are more a case of they're one of the main genre's that self-pub's and all of the digital firsts out there compete in. They didn't have to compete with that at Target or in the Supermarket with MMPB's.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I thought Carina is the HQN digital-only line.

I'm surprised they said they had issues going digital, because they were one of the first to actually release everything digital.

You could be right, but I didn't know Carina was a Harlequin company. I thought it was small press. I can't keep track of all the deals/ins/outs/names especially in romance because it's not a genre I follow closely. And honestly since I went indie a few years back I even stopped following a lot of the other publishing news because it isn't as important to me as it once was!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Luna is a relatively new imprint and happens to be popular at the moment, but from what I see authors still use it as a stepping stone.

It may continue to serve that purpose or they may (as they kind of tried in the past) try to sell author services to keep some income and be able to groom some authors to other imprints.

One thing they can do is be totally digital unless a book sells well. Other companies are doing that and it does cut costs. For all I know they already have a line that is totally digital. I don't recall...I know Carina Press has digital only unless sales reach X. ... Can't think if Avon has that too...

Luna has launched the careers of several good fantasy writers but they don't just deal with newcomers: Mercedes Lackey has one of her more popular series (TALES OF THE 500 KINGDOMS) with them. Then again, Lackey is so prolific she needs to be everywhere. No single trad pub house can keep up with her output.

Anyway, LUNA specializes in semi-romantic Fantasy; as in 70% fantasy-Adventure, 30% relationship. The ones I've read are solid and polished. HC would be well advised to keep their acquisition managers.

(I'm pretty sure CARINA started out as a Harlequin spinoff for digital first. Not sure if they're part of HQ but from what I've heard their authors aren't terribly happy with their Harlequin-esque pricing and royalties.)

[Top100EbooksRank]

$0.06 royalties for an ebook that is $3.99/$4.99/$5.99 on Amazon Kindle

or

$2 royalties for an ebook that is $2.99 on Amazon Kindle (self-pub).

And romance is the best selling genre for self-publishers right now.

And I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of all romance books sold are now in digital form.


Notice the negative trend:

2013: $398 million
2012: $426.5 million
2011: $459 million
2010: $468 million
2009: $493 million

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

$0.06 royalties for an ebook that is $3.99/$4.99/$5.99 on Amazon Kindle

or

$2 royalties for an ebook that is $2.99 on Amazon Kindle (self-pub).

And romance is the best selling genre for self-publishers right now.

And I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of all romance books sold are now in digital form.


Notice the negative trend:

2013: $398 million
2012: $426.5 million
2011: $459 million
2010: $468 million
2009: $493 million

Torstar did.

A lot more than half of all romance sales are now ebooks; I've seen estimates that go as high as 80%.

The thing is, Harlequin's situation is the result of plain (and mean) mismanagement.
It sounds as if HC can and will use HQ capabilities for things other than MMPB romance.

The Bloomberg report on the sale points out:
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/201...n-in-cash.html

The acquisition gives HarperCollins a foothold in 11 foreign countries and expertise in translations. The deal also underscore’s Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson’s strategy of what he calls “globalization and digitization” -- the idea that News Corp. needs to sell content better around the world and online.
“This is really part of our overall play in those areas,” he said in an interview. “It also signals the book business is an important part of the company.”
Harlequin publishes more than 1,300 authors and releases more than 110 titles monthly in 34 languages. Currently almost all HarperCollins books are published in English.

HC might be getting a bargain if the deal goes through, but not from the romance business--HC already owns Avon, after all.

[anonymoose]

Yes, Carina is Harelquin's digital-only line.

As someone who buys a lot of romance ebooks, I have found that, while the quality of standards (writing tone, grammar, etc.) are good at Carina, many of the plots they offer are uninteresting. The more creative stories are being sold by indie ebook publishers where the writers get much better royalties. I bought 20 ebooks yesterday. Only one of them was from Carina, and that only happened because that author is someone I read already and whom also publishes ebooks a number of ways including indie ebook publishers and self-publishing.

Ebook authors don't publish exclusively anymore and Carina, and I also think other traditional publishers, haven't been able to keep up with the lure of ebook authors getting a better cut elsewhere. Print gets you more distribution (and hopefully advertising support), but how are they treating their ebook authors in comparison to what they get from the indies?

I think marketing has been an issue too. Luna was a great line but I worked in a bookstore when they first started coming out and I can tell you that booksellers didn't know if they should be shelving them with all the other Harlequins or if they should go into the Fantasy section. I used to actually move a few copies into the SF/Fantasy section myself because they'd actually sell there, as opposed to the Romance section which is where our head office told us to put them. And Carina... no one knows who they are. Maybe they should have put Harlequin into the name somewhere and used that branding as leverage. Lost opportunities.