Rachel Chou, the chief marketing officer at Open Road Media, noted that the company only publishes between twelve and fifteen front-list (new) titles per year; everything else is back-list. Most of the titles are available only as ebooks, but Open Road makes some available through print-on-demand (POD), and will do short print runs if a book is really taking off. “There are certain books that really need to be in a [physical] bookstore,” she told moderator Phil Olila, chief content officer at Ingram Content Group. “They deserve that table up front, they have that reader that really wants to hand out a gift.” Open Road starts print runs at 500 copies, and the largest print run they have done is 15,000 copies. “If we’ve done a print run and we find that it’s really taking awhile to get through the inventory,” she said, “we can switch it back” to POD.

Chou also noted that advertising has changed: “I think we’ve done three print ads in three years. The budgets have definitely gone toward digital and online and social advertising.”

Dan Weiss, publisher at large at Macmillan’s St. Martin’s Press, has overseen digital-only series like the Sweet Valley Twins e-singles. He noted that the cheap paperback mass market is shrinking, and said, “We think it’s gradually being replaced by digital-first.”

“We’ve done serials, we’ve done e-first, e-only, we’ve scooped up online writers like [Amanda] Hocking. We’ve done prequels, sequels, interstitials,” Weiss said. The company hasn’t done a print-only deal — like bestselling self-published author Hugh Howey’s print-only deal with Simon and Schuster for Wool — yet. “We feel it’s important as a full-service publisher to have all rights,” Weiss said. “That may change.”

While Weiss said that St. Martin’s doesn’t like to give away content for free, he has occasionally had difficulty convincing others at the company of the need to price digital content cheaply (a challenge that he said is not limited to Macmillan). “As the serial format continues to grow, getting publishers and getting my colleagues to understand that pricing is crucial has been really challenging,” he said. “We have to argue that this is the minor leagues, and we’re trying to build sluggers for the major leagues, that we can take into print.”

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock/Vladimir Melnikov 

Our upcoming paidContent Live conference will highlight the changes in the book publishing business, and Howey exemplifies many of these trends. In this podcast, the second in a series featuring digital media creators who are successfully building their own independent empires, we talk to him about his success and what’s next.

paidContent Live takes place in New York on April 17.

(Download this episode)

Subscribe to the Podcast RSS feed

iTunes

Stitcher Radio

SELECT PREVIOUS EPISODES:
Why the digital age needs an effective content licensing strategy

T-Mo’s no plan, SummlYahoo and everyone’s a paparazzi

IoT: Why the Hue internet lightbulb is a bright idea

Call in podcast: T-Mobile iPhone and the best Android keyboard

Podcast: How IBM uses chaos theory, data and the internet of things to fix traffic

Podcast: How Indie Game stayed “indie” and became a hit

Call in podcast: T-Mobile iPhone and the best Android keyboard

Samsung Galaxy S 4 blasts off, RIP Google Reader

Electric Imp aims to make the Internet of Things devilishly simple

Call-In: Galaxy S 4 predictions, Chromebook Pixel cloud storage

Podcast: Facebook’s feedin’; Lean In’s meanin’; and everyone’s Hadoop-in

First, Simon & Schuster has bought the U.S. print rights to Wool, the bestselling self-published science fiction title by Hugh Howey. Howey retains the digital rights, but Simon & Schuster will release hardcover and print editions. “This is a modern twist on the old paperback license, but in this case Simon & Schuster will be publishing the hardcover and paperback editions simultaneously,” Julia Prosser, assistant director of publicity at S&S, told Digital Book World. “We’re thrilled to be able to help Wool achieve greater distribution at retail and bring this talented writer to a larger audience.”

Publishers Lunch notes that Howey “had already made a traditional publishing deal in the U.K. (with Century) and agent Kristin Nelson and her sub-agents have already licensed the book in over 18 territories” and also lists some other print-only deals publishers have made in recent months — including Simon & Schuster’s print-only deal last year with bestselling self-published author John Locke. And Fox and Ridley Scott bought the Wool film rights in May.

Separately, the San Francisco e-singles publisher Byliner signed a deal with distributor Ingram to distribute its titles in print. In the statement, Byliner publisher John Tayman said “we increasingly hear from our readers and writers that they would like our stories available in print as well as digital form,” and he believes the partnership with Ingram will provide “the expertise and unmatched distribution channel to deliver our writers’ stories to all of the great neighborhood brick-and-mortar bookstores.”

Deadline Hollywood broke the news and reports “Ridley and Tony Scott’s Scott Free are partnering on the deal with Film Rites’ Steve Zaillian and Garrett Basch. Producer credits are still being worked out, but they will include Scott Free’s Elisha Holmes and Michael Costigan. Fox’s Steve Asbell will oversee it.” Zaillian was the screenwriter for “Schindler’s List,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Moneyball.”

“Wool,” a series of five short books each priced at $0.99, is set in a post-apocalpytic future. Humans have damaged the planet so badly that they have to live underground in a giant silo. The books have sold almost 140,000 copies this year, Publishers Weekly reported last month. Hugh Howey is represented by literary agent Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency, and United Talent Agency’s Kassie Evashevski sold the film rights.

“I still have to keep my expectations low because the chances of something actually being made remain slim,” Howey said in a video on his website. But “I munched a lot of popcorn watching Ridley Scott films….whether or not anything gets put together, it’s unbelievable.”

The art illustrating this post was created by “Wool” fan Jasper Schreurs.