New Alloy Unit to Offer Advances
By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2009 1:42:00 PM
Alloy Entertainment, the creator of such hits as Gossip Girl and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, has launched a new unit that will accept manuscripts for publication. Up until now, Alloy has generated all of its ideas in-house, but the Alloy Entertainment Collaborative will look to acquire up to 12 books annually with an emphasis on women’s fiction, young adult, middle grade, and chapter books. The Collaborative will be headed by executive v-p Josh Bank. Bank said he hopes the initiative will strengthen Alloy in such areas as adult fiction and middle grades.
Alloy is developing submission guidelines for authors who are interested in submitting unagented manuscripts, but president Leslie Morgenstein said he expects the majority of projects to come from agents. Alloy will pay low five-figure advances against publishing royalties, a departure from its usual model in which writers receive a revenue split. Writers will still receive a split after the advance is earned back. “We’re adding a new fork to our business model,” Morgenstein said.
Alloy will work on all manuscripts it acquires before submitting them to publishers. Morgenstein emphasized that Alloy is not interested in becoming a publisher, but intends the Collaborative “to open us up to new writers.” In keeping with its traditional model, Alloy is looking for projects that work across film, television and new media, but Bank said the company will look at manuscripts that work best as books. “The most important thing is that they have commercial potential,” he said.
