HarperCollins Promotion Offers Schools a Discount on Harper Lee’s Novel

By Maryann Yin 

To Kill a MockingbirdHarperCollins announced plans to run a special price promotion on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Beginning on April 27, K-12 schools will be able to buy the trade paperback edition of this book for $8.99.

HarperCollins retains the trade paperback, hardcover, and special edition rights to this book; Hachette Book Group held the mass market paperback rights. Michael Morrison, the president of U.S. General Books and Canada, gave this statement in the press release: “We are happy that schools will be able to acquire our trade edition of To Kill a Mockingbird—a superior reading experience, with its larger trim size and greater durability—at the lower price they have become accustomed to.”

Earlier this month, Hachette sent an email to booksellers revealing that the Harper Lee estate will not issue a new license for the mass market paperback rights to this beloved novel. Henceforth, no publishing house will be permitted to release the book in this format within the United States.