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Barbour Sells Heartsong to Harlequin

January 27, 2012 in Agency, Business, Contracts, Publishing, Steve with 17 Comments

by Steve Laube

Today Barbour Publishing announced they have sold their Heartsong Presents line of inspirational romances to Harlequin.

For those of us who have been wondering about the eventual buyer, this comes as no surprise. We have known they were being sold since last Fall. In December I spoke with Barbour’s president, Tim Martins, and he confirmed that the sale was in its last stages of negotiation but he could not say who the buyer would be. With their Love Inspired lines of Christian romance, suspense, and historical titles and a strong member subscription base Harlequin is well suited to sustain(?) or absorb(?) the Heartsong line for years to come.

Our agency has nearly thirty authors who are writing or have written for Heartsong in the past. We also have over twenty authors who are writing or have written for Harlequin’s Love Inspired. So, for our clients this is a pretty big deal.

There are some questions raised that have answers, and some that don’t.

1) Barbour filled the pipeline for 2012 with 52 new titles. Their Editorial staff has been contracted to manage, edit, and typeset  those properties during the transition to Harlequin. So for the first half of the year, nothing will change. By then we should know what the new acquisition strategy looks like.

2) We have no answers about the future and how these two lines will merge or evolve. And it is useless to speculate. Joan Marlow Golan who is the head of the Love Inspired team is a very sharp and excellent about communicating changes to us agents. Do not write or ask your Barbour editor on Twitter or Facebook or email to ask questions. They are now a contractor for Harlequin and it wouldn’t be fair to them to ask for “insider information” that they cannot or should not share. Instead this is where you rely on your agent for information.

3) Harlequin’s three Love Inspired lines currently releases 14 new titles per month. (Six romance, four suspense, and four historical.) Heartsong, as noted above does four to five per month (52 per year), or one third the output of Harlequin. Adding the two together, with no changes would mean an increase from 168 titles to 220 per year. We would hope that will be the case, but it may not.

4) Existing contracts will be honored as written. I’ve seen numerous publisher sales before and the past contracts remain in force in every case.

(Update 1/27/2012 at 6:30pm EST)

5) Since Heartsong books were not in the retail market the general public will not see anything different. However, recently the backlist Heartsong titles were targeted to be converted to e-b00ks (about 980 of them). Those will roll out in 2012 and would make a ready addition to the strong ebook sales that Harlequin already enjoys. And those e-books will probably be priced at $4.99 each.

6) As for the 3-in-1 or 4-in-1 collections that combined Heartsong books into one volume, we do not know exactly what will happen with that program. These are not the same as the novella collections already in place. I am talking about books like Kansas Home that combined three Heartsong books into one trade paper which was sold into the retail market.

A Defense of Traditional Publishing: Part One

April 12, 2011 in Defense of Traditional Publishing with 22 Comments

INTRODUCTION

There has been a plethora of new developments in the publishing industry causing the blogosphere, writers groups, and print media to light up with opinions, reflections, and advice. Some of it has been quite brilliant, other parts, not so much.

I would like to attempt to address the positive elements of traditional (or legacy) publishing as a defense of the latest round of assault.

The source of the overall criticism can be found in the e-book revolution and the invention of print-on-demand (POD) printing. Book Publishing used to be a difficult and expensive proposition but has become a valid do-it-yourself option. Consequently anyone can publish a book, so why be beholden to the major publishers?

Please realize that I understand both sides of the equation. After all I founded ACW Press in 1996 B.G. (“Before Google”) to help authors self-publish (the company was sold quite some time ago). I can effectively argue for the choice to self-publish as well as argue for the choice to pursue traditional publishing. Both have their place.

What has troubled me these past few months has been the vociferous rejection of the traditional publishing method as antiquated, inefficient, top heavy, corporate-driven, and uncaring about author’s financial well-being or their content. A vocal few have declared the “system” broken and walked away, either as a rebel, angry at the “man,” or as a risk-taker believing that going alone is the key to publishing success. Whether their rebellion has merit only time will decide.

Meanwhile over the next few weeks (one per week) I would like to recite the things traditional publishers are doing right. There is no agenda other than creating a conversation and a counter to some of what is being written about our industry.

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Curation

Part Three: Editorial

Part Four: Design

Part Five: Infrastructure

 

 

Tell No Secrets

February 22, 2011 in Business, Publishing with 8 Comments

How much should author friends reveal to each other about contracts or other business dealings when they have business with the same publisher?

I think it is a huge mistake to reveal the amount of your advances to other authors. This is similar to finding out the salary of the co-worker in the office cubicle next to yours. When I was a retail store manager we had major problems when salaries were revealed, a near fist-fight between two people who had been friends.

Money is viewed as a measure of worth; i.e. a measure of the worthiness of your work. Consequently if you contract for a $5,000 advance with AlphaGammaDelta publisher and a month later, your best writing friend, who is at the same stage in her career as you are, contracts for a $8,000 advance with the same publisher for a similar project…what is your reaction? Sure, at first, it is excitement and joy for your friend. But later, in private, you will naturally begin to wonder about your publisher’s commitment to you. You think, “They must like Sally better than me!” Jealousy and bitterness can set in.

I’m not saying that this will happen to you, but I caution you with every ounce of my being, be very careful about ever revealing monetary details of a book contract with anyone. It can become a form of gossip that does no one any good. I know of an e-mail trail among authors that was very free with this kind of information and consequently there is tension towards a particular publisher for not paying everyone the same. This is unreasonable and unfair…and doesn’t help anyone.

In my years as an editor and now as an agent I’ve seen contracts land all over the board. The timing of a publisher’s economic situation and certain management directives can change quarterly (even weekly!). The relationship the author has with the publisher, the relationship the agent has with the publisher, the perception of value that the publisher has of a project…They all influence each situation uniquely.

But we tend to compare contracts as if all contracts are equal. Trust me, they are not.

Of course I’m speaking specifically about contracts here. There are professional people who can help you determine if your deal is a good one. Or you can simply trust your agent….!!!

Rumor Control

April 8, 2010 in Agency with 21 Comments

I was talking with an editor this week who asked me, “How are things going? I hear that your agency is barely making ends meet and that you’ve had to take on other type of work to survive.”

I must admit that I was so startled by this rumor that words nearly failed me.

“Where did you hear that?” I exclaimed.

“Oh it was at a recent writers conference and folks were talking, and your name came up.”

At the risk of sounding defensive, let me set the record straight. While there is no question that the publishing industry is in a mode of risk management, our agency is very healthy. We have the privilege of representing a large number of highly successful authors whose books are selling and whose new books are being contracted. Plus we have recently placed some first time authors and added some new veteran clients to our roster. In fact, if my projections hold true, we will break our single year sales record by the end of this calendar year. As of April 7, 2010 we have already contracted 29 new books. And we continue to have a lot of great new books being published.

In other words, The Steve Laube Agency is alive and well and is not having to scramble to survive.

Which brings me to the larger issue about rumors. After questioning this editor a little further it became evident that they had either misheard or misunderstood what was said. I am grateful that this editor asked me directly or I would never have known what was being said. Please don’t think that what I write next is directed at this person. Instead I’m addressing the issue of rumors and gossip in general.

Why is it that some people tend to believe gossip over actual truth? And then why do they spread the “news” to others without verifying the facts? These rumors can take a tragic turn. I know a friend whose career was nearly derailed by a nasty rumor. It took that person years to recover their reputation. Another example was last July when Michael Hyatt had to quell rumors being spread about Thomas Nelson Publishers. As it has been said, “Some bring oxy­gen and oth­ers expel CO2.”

The publishing community is a small one. And the Christian publishing industry is even smaller. I try, albeit imperfectly, to verify a rumor before ever repeating it. This is the right thing to do. Stop gossip before it starts. It may be that we “like” to hear bad news (why do we slow down to look at the accident on the freeway?). And good news sounds like bragging. In fact the above paragraph about our agency will come across as braggadocios to some.

Let us endeavor to keep our own counsel. And undergird all matters with a Christ-like spirit. Celebrate each others victories and pray for each others miseries. We all have both. But rumors and gossip have no place in either.