Hyperion President and founding publisher Robert S. Miller is bailing on that company to “launch a new global publishing program based on a non-traditional business model” at HarperCollins. He’d shared the news of his resignation with a few coworkers earlier this week and had planned to make a formal announcement at the monthly staff meeting on Monday, but word had begun to leak out, prompting HarperCollins to make the news public today in a press release, which just arrived here prefaced by its forwarder with the heading, “Holy shit.” Well: Yes! Not only has Miller been the driving force at Disney-owned Hyperion since he started it 17 years ago, but his departure follows hot on the heels of longtime Editor in Chief Will Schwalbe’s, in January. What does this mean for Hyperion, and just what exactly will the “non-traditional” Harper startup entail?
According to the press release, “Miller will publish approximately 25 popular-priced books per year in multiple physical and digital formats including those as yet unspecified, with the aim to combine the best practices of trade publishing while taking full advantage of the internet for sales, marketing and distribution. Authors will be compensated through a profit sharing model as opposed to a traditional royalty, and books will be promoted utilizing on-line publicity, advertising and marketing.” Translation, probably: Whatever it is that Bob will be publishing will be printed on demand, or you will be able to read it on your Kindle-type device, or, eventually, by using implanted technology in your eyeballs that will allow you to turn pages by blinking.
Miller is quoted in the release as saying that “Our goal will be to effectively publish books that might not otherwise emerge in an increasingly ‘big book’ environment, an environment in which established authors are under enormous pressure to top their previous successes, while new authors are finding it harder and harder to be published at all,” which sounds very nice.
As for ‘what this means for Hyperion,’ the short answer is, nothing good. Hyperion has always been anomalous in that it has a relatively big list proportionate to its relatively tiny staff, and as such, its institutional personality is colored disproportionately by any staffing changes. Publisher Ellen Archer has been promoted to president, effective immediately. She has her work cut out for her.