Miller Batting .500 at HarperStudio

When Bob Miller left Hyperion in April to set up HarperStudio at HarperCollins, he was committed to trying two different approaches to the traditional publishing model: offering low advances in exchange for profit sharing and achieving lower returns, preferably by selling nonreturnable. Miller has not found it too difficult to meet the first part of that equation, but settling on new terms has been a different matter. “Fitting in the nonreturnable piece has been a bit of a puzzle,” Miller acknowledged. He said that after five months of discussions, “we've learned a lot about the needs of our accounts,” including that “each account has a different set of needs to be met” before they will consider buying nonreturnable. Unable to find a one-size-fits-all policy, Miller said that at this stage HarperStudio plans to offer retailers a choice of going returnable or nonreturnable, “with the hope that our nonreturnable terms will be appealing enough that retailers will try that option.”

The inability to get retailers to back a nonreturnable sale has not diminished Miller's enthusiasm for the new venture or his determination to experiment. “It's been a very gratifying experience,” Miller said. With its profit-sharing model, HarperStudio has attracted a range of authors, from bestselling celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse to Gayle Tzemach, a former reporter for ABC News. The imprint's first book, Who Is Mark Twain, is a collection of 22 unpublished short pieces by Twain; it will be released April 21, 2009, the 99th anniversary of Twain's death. In May, Miller will release The 50th Law, a collaboration between Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and rap star 50 Cent. Two more titles—the first in the 10-book deal with Lagasse and Burn This Book, an anthology from PEN writers edited by Toni Morrison—will be released next year. By 2010 Miller expects to settle in to a schedule of doing about two books per month.

The 25 deals HarperStudio has signed to date have come from a variety of sources, ranging from submissions by agents to projects developed by the imprint's four-person team. Promotion plans are still being developed, but Miller said online marketing will be an important part of its efforts, and will likely include some free online samples of certain titles. Although Miller hopes to eventually publish titles in digital form, the first books are set for hardcover or trade paperback.