The Daily Beast announced a partnership with Perseus Books Group yesterday, a new Beast Books imprint that will quickly produce digital books by the website’s authors–followed by equally rapid paperback editions.
The NY Times explains that authors would have a few months to turn around these timely titles. The article also takes a frank look at print sales for books that started as eBooks. According to BookScan figures, Daniel Gross’ “Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation” sold 4,000 print copies, while George Soros’ “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets” sold 50,000 print copies.
Here’s an excerpt from the article: “[Beast founder Tina Brown] envisioned most of the Beast Books titles as being 40,000 words, or about 150 pages…Perseus is paying The Daily Beast a five-figure management advance to cover the costs of editing and designing the books, and Perseus will distribute the titles through its existing sales force. The writers will receive low five-figure advances from Perseus, then split profits from the sale of both the e-books and paperbacks with Perseus and The Daily Beast.”