04/09/06

New Models #1

Penguin’s Viking imprint have announced a web-only, limited edition, 10-installment ‘victorian’ style publication, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters.

Ignore, for one minute, ladies and gentlemen, that (as a commenter on the viking blog says) the book has been published in the US already. Think instead of the fact that this could be an interesting new model emerging from Penguin, under perhaps some of the following circumstances:

Publisher likes novel and decides to take a punt on it, but can’t find a ’slot’ for it in the publishing schedule.

Nor does publisher quite believe in it enough to stake so much as to go outside of the slots and make it into an event of publishing, throwing money and time at it to interest the bookshops. Instead, it comes down to old fashioned gut and a desire to take a risk on something.

But they still want to publish, and can probably pick it up for a song (given the poor reviews in the US, according to the commenter above, although I haven’t confirmed this I’m afraid).

So, they talk to marketing and together come up with the following, inspired, way of circumventing all of the hoo-hah that is involved in getting a book into, and then out of (in the customer’s pockets rather than the back of a delivery truck returning to Slough) the bookshops.

* Small print run (aka “lets call it a limited edition!”)
* Exclsuively available through our site (aka “theres no time or money to sell into the trade; and if we go direct to consumer we won’t have to discount it so the margins will be much more forgiving”)
*Advance orders only (aka “if it’s really unpopular, let’s only print as many as we have orders for”) with a strict deadline for orders

It’s pretty inspired. The, if all books sell out, or at least half of them, they can claim to have an online ‘phenomenon’ and use this to sell the book into the trade in a terrestrial edition release such as a hardback or paperback.

On top of this, I love the subcsription model: of 10 books coming through the post for £25. (although I haven’t worked out how that saves Penguin money yet)

I’ve been trying to convince a client to go for this for years – to get loyal consumers to pay up front for a surprise set of books that would come direct, through the post, at regular intervals. It’s such a wonderful thing, getting stuff in the post, and if you can convince readers to do it – a worthwhile experiment. Soft Skull debated something similar earlier this year

Basically, I suspect this part of the future of independent publishing—in large part because I’m almost certain that as eBook sales pick up in the coming years, a subscription model is by far the most plausible means of delivery. So I figure we should start getting used to it by setting something pretty basic up for the print books, forcing us to proceed slowly along the learning curve.

OK, Penguin may have tried to hype this book by some half-hearted ‘viral’ endeavours but, hell, at least they’ve got a blog.

No, this is interesting in many ways, and also our hats go off to them for innovating, experimenting, and having a go.

Posted by Peter Collingridge in Publishing, Uncategorized.

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