The NY Times has a piece today by Motoko Rich about a new HarperCollins imprint that plans to drastically reduce—and possibly do away with—writer advances:
Ms. Friedman said the new group, which will initially publish just 25 titles a year, would offer “low or no advances.” Mr. Miller, who was most recently president of Hyperion, said he hoped to offer authors a 50-50 split of profits. Typically, authors earn royalties of 15 percent of profits after they have paid off their advances. Many authors never earn royalties.
Is this a bad thing for writers? Maybe not. Writers who command high advances might jump at the chance to trade them for the upside of higher royalties. With lesser known writers, publishers have less of an incentive to push a low-advance/high-royalty deal (because advances are lower). But even if the approach catches on, there could be another benfit to writers: publishers might issue more titles. Talented new authors would have to figure out how to pay their rent ("Welcome to our world," say the independent filmmakers), but they could wind up with a larger share of the fruits of their labors.
