Dec
04
2008
From Publishers Marketplace :
In the good news, Hachette is essentially printing money with the Twilight series. I can't find the article right now (I think it was in PW) but it said that Hachette can't fill the orders for Twilight fast enough. They are printing 7.5 million more copies and that they sometimes have 8 printing presses going at the same time. To date, the series has sold 25 million copies. It's fairly amazing to me how one book can really carry a whole publishing house. For Scholastic, it was the Harry Potter series. For Simon & Schuster, it was The Secret. But these books seem to be an anomaly. Is it really wise to place so much of the economic success of a business on one product?
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. She's currently loving contemporary authors like Sarah Mayberry and Kristan Higgins but her first love will always be the historical. Some of her old time favorites are Amanda Quick and Johanna Lindsey and some of the new favorites are Sherry Thomas, Joanna Bourne and Claudia Dain.
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I say no, considering Scholastic had a tough year this year.
So does that mean my first edition copy is worth money?
That’s probably what got them into trouble in the first place. Much like celebrity books.
Isn’t that the business though? They look for strong selling books and authors, but the biggest goal is to have that one book or author that tens of millions of copies? They have to take some risk to achieve maximum profits. It does make me see what a scary business publishing is!
I always felt that diversification is the smartest business option. Relying overmuch on one product seems akin to building your house with a foundation of Cheez-Whiz.
Honestly, I think businesses that sell creative products (tv shows, books, movies) just get lucky half the time when they have a huge hit on their hands. I’ve worked in the cable industry for 9 years, and some of the things that are hits and some of the shows that are flops can just defy reason. You read about them in pilot stage, hear about them being presented at TCA, and you would not guess that show c would be a hit and show a (which looks much better on paper) would not.
Yes, quality can rise to the top, but it seems like a certain story just hits the zeitgeist at the right time – and the same thing of same quality would not hit 2 years before or even 1 month later. Basically the william goldman nobody knows nothing idea. I would doubt that anyone would write a business plan based on just one item really taking off like gangbusters, but they want to ride the wave as long as they can when it happens.