Blue Chip or Dog?
B rad Whittington has an interesting take on how publishers view books. He says that it bothered him that publishers would show enough interest in a book to publish it, but they wouldn’t spend the time and money needed to market it. That is until he realized that publishers offer contracts much like a Wall Street investor purchases stock. The investor wants a diverse portfolio. Most of that portfolio will consist of blue chip stock, the sure thing, but the more risky stock have a greater potential for fast growth, so the investor grabs some of those, just in case one of them really takes off. Publishers will put most of their money in well established authors, but they’ll make a risk investment in some of the unknown authors, just so they have a chance of already having the next bestseller under contract when it takes off. [ 1 ] I’m sure there are ways in which this analogy breaks down, but I think Brad Whittington’s idea is mostly correct. This model may give us some insight into und...