Quote:
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.
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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...