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APA president and CEO Jim Gosnell announced that the agency is launching Beverly Drive Press, an in-house e-book publishing unit for its clients. The talent and literary agency is partnering with Argo Navis, the e-publishing arm of independent publishers Perseus Book Group, for the venture.
The in-house imprint offers APA and its clients the chance to coordinate marketing across multiple platforms, including social media, and leverage promotional opportunities in ways that are more difficult when working through traditional publishers. It also provides an opportunity for APA to offer clients successful in other fields a streamlined path to publishing for first projects or unique efforts that might not be an easy sell to traditional publishers.
For authors, the move to an in-house imprint promises a more advantageous revenue split than is found in standard publishing deals — plus they will retain control over production and marketing decisions.
“The Big 6 publishers are no longer the sole gatekeepers for aspiring authors,” says Steve Fisher, vp feature literary at APA, who will head up the new effort. “A democratization of the process has taken place, and APA plans to be a part of that marketplace with Beverly Drive Press.”
APA’s move is another sign that the rise of the e-book, the consolidation of traditional publishers and the erosion of the physical book marketplace are creating opportunities for agents and authors to independently pursue publishing projects in a way that would not have been technologically or financially possible even a few years ago.
Initial works published under the Beverly Drive Press imprint will include Skinny White Freak by actor Paul Haddad, Pangaea by screenwriter Jake Wade Wall (Cabin Fever: Patient Zero) and Sixteen by screenwriter Sean Hood (2011’s Conan the Barbarian). Skinny White Freak is described as a “coming of rage” story about a teen boy who confronts Worm, the bully who torments him, only to find that the encounter has changed him in unexpected ways. Pangaea is a thriller about a group of scientists who confront the fact that the seven continents are sliding back together — quickly — to reform the ancient supercontinent called Pangaea. Sixteen is a collection of sixteen short horror stories, each featuring a 16-year-old protagonist. It was pitched as Holden Caulfield meets H.P. Lovecraft.
Books can be found at BeverlyDrivePress.com and through Amazon, among other outlets.
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