by: Joanne Kaufman
Through canny marketing, careful timing and plain old dumb luck, Vintage Books caught lightning in a bottle this summer when it published David Nicholls's novel "One Day" as a paperback original—a format viewed by some as publishing's poor cousin—and turned it into a best seller. There are currently almost 300,000 copies in print.
Released in England last year to glowing reviews and strong sales, the book centers on Emma and Dexter, who have a postgraduation fling and go their separate ways but never lose track of each other. "One Day" charts the couple's sometimes parallel, sometimes intersecting lives every subsequent July 15 for the next two decades.
Because Mr. Nicholls's previous two novels hadn't sold well in the U.S., the decision makers at Vintage, an imprint of Random House, Inc., determined that paperback original was the way to go. The lower cover price would make it more appealing to the 20-something target audience and buyers in general. Publication was held off until June not only to give the favorable press about "One Day" ample time to reach American shores, but to echo the summer setting of the novel. Then came word—here's the dumb luck part—that Anne Hathaway had signed on for the movie.
"We're all talking about 'One Day,'" acknowledged Martha Levin, the publisher of Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, who like many others in the business views the paperback-original format as an increasingly attractive option—perhaps the only option—for young authors with no track record, midcareer authors with a challenging track record and international authors being published for the first time in the U.S.
The paperback-original gambit is "all about creating a brand identity in the marketplace or establishing yourself as an author, and then people will buy you no matter what the price," said literary agent Deborah Schneider, whose clients include Mr. Nicholls.
Granted, the paperback original is hardly a new concept. In Europe, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, it's the industry standard. In the U.S., it's long been the default choice for romances and other genre fiction. In the '80s, Gary Fisketjon, now an editor at large for Knopf, created Vintage Contemporaries—publisher of the iconic "Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney—as a launching pad for young writers who would subsequently move up in class to hardcover.
But a stigma lingers. The belief that a paperback original, however worthy, will be given short shrift by reviewers tells part of the story. "Critics pay more attention to hardcovers even if they say they don't," said one agent who requested anonymity. Those eager to make the case for paperback originals point to the The New Yorker's "briefly noted" reviews of "The Thieves of Manhattan" and "The News Where You Are." They point to the New York Times' recent review of "Vida," a debut short-story collection published by Black Cat, a Grove/Atlantic imprint devoted to paperback originals.
And while Erich Eichman, a Wall Street Journal books editor, insists that format is of no consequence—"I'm just looking for something original," he said—Kim Hubbard, the books editor at People magazine, is a bit more equivocal: "I see so many books for review consideration that I always need ways to narrow the list," she wrote in an email message. "Seeing 'paperback original' in a catalog used to mean I could safely skip a book—that the publisher probably didn't have big ambitions for it. That's slowly beginning to change," added Ms. Hubbard, who, in fact, did commission a review for "One Day." It was a rave.
There are other sticking points, chief among them lucre. Everybody involved—author, agent, publisher, retailer—makes more money on a hardcover than a paperback. Indeed, although arrangements vary, paperback royalties are generally 25% those of hardcovers. Then there's the matter of author pride.
"No one will really say it, because it sounds foolish, but vanity is a big issue," said one publisher who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing authors on his list. "In almost every deal I do, the agent tries to get a contractual hardcover commitment even if the book isn't written yet and down the road it might become clear that paperback original is the way to go."
But the desire for such a commitment can't be simply dismissed as ego. The long- established pattern of hardcover publication followed by paperback release does give a book two opportunities to find an audience at two different price points. Unfortunately, as many in the industry note, if a book performs poorly in hardcover, retailers are unlikely to place a large order for the paperback edition.
Frances Coady, the vice president and publisher of Picador, the paperback imprint of Macmillan, said: "You have to ask yourself questions like, 'Is it better to sell 5,000 or 8,000 copies in hardcover and try to reinvent the book in paperback?'—which, unless there's some extraordinary piece of luck, is really hard to do—or 'Is it better to sell 50,000 in a paperback original?'"
The parlous economy—combined with the high price of hardcovers, the low price of e-books and the urging of retailers like Barnes & Noble—is pushing publishers like Ms. Coady toward ever greater flexibility about format. Thus, next May, Picador will release "The Summer Without Men" by novelist Siri Hustvedt as a paperback original. Never mind that Ms. Hustvedt's books are routinely published in hardcover. "It's fabulous," Ms. Coady said of "Summer." "And I think it will be huge. But it felt to me like a reading-group or summer-reading book. I was able to give Siri and her agent a lot of other examples of successful paperback originals we've done," she continued, mentioning "Small Island," by Andrea Levy, whose new novel, "The Long Song," was just shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. "And I'm sure Siri's next book will be a hardcover."
A few years ago, to help build writer Jim Shepard's fan base, Knopf's Mr. Fisketjon decided to publish a paperback-original collection of Mr. Shepard's short stories to coincide with the hardcover publication of his new novel. "We brought out his subsequent short-story collection in hardcover and it did well because Jim had found new readers with the paperback," said Mr. Fisketjon, adding that he's now trying the same strategy with another author.
"There's no question that you're going to see more original trade paperbacks," said Ellen Archer, the publisher of Hyperion Books. "But it's not a magic bullet. It might not succeed, just like a hardcover book might not succeed."
Since the U.S. publication of "One Day," Peter Gethers, Mr. Nicholls's editor at Random House Inc., has heard from "a lot of agents who want to know how we made this work," he said. "The good thing about the book business being in such chaos is it gives you an opportunity to try a lot of different options."
And the follow-up to "One Day"? "It will be a hardcover," said Mr. Nicholls's agent, Ms. Schneider. "Everybody knows who David is now."
Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.
from: Wall Street Journal
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