I am fairly uneducated on the legal and technical aspects of such proceedings—will HarperCollins now publish direct to the US? Does this mean the HC logo will appear on the books now?

This seems like a good idea to me at least, and hopefully it will make deluxe editions a bit cheaper in the US.

This is just my reading of the press release (no inside information here), and I will preface this with saying much is likely not even decided yet! I don't think the two teams have even talked to each other at this time.

The press release says that the HMH (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) name will be continue to "focus singularly on K–12 education", and that they are "divesting" the trade books arm to HarperCollins. "As part of the agreement, all HMH Books & Media employees will join HarperCollins".

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 (so, before July). The US market is not identical to the UK market, so I am hopeful that HarperCollins will continue to have some variations, but I honestly don't expect it. I think the days of different cover art between US and UK editions may be fading (like the Johan Egerkrans trade paperbacks for example), but in exchange this means that HarperCollins deluxe editions (that HMHCo almost never co-released) might be buyable in the US marketplace!

I'd imagine it means the days of 3 - 4,000 copy "limited" editions will be gone (which I don't personally especially care about, but some people like the perceived scarcity).

Since the market for each release is so much larger now, I worry HC will more aggressively cut corners to achieve scale. Will be watching the quality of new releases carefully.

I posted this elsewhere, seems good to post it here as well.

I've talked with some people at Houghton Mifflin today, they are upbeat on the news. Prior mergers of other imprints into the HarperCollins beast have gone relatively smoothly and some independence/voice was retained.

HMH have had the rights to the US market since 1938 for Tolkien titles. If HC wanted to release a book and HMH didn't think there was a market for it, then HC couldn't release it here. US fans had to order internationally, pay steep shipping costs, and hope things make it across the pond safely as returns/exchanges were always difficult. Conversely, HMH could and did go their own way (e.g. the recent Johan Egerkrans trade paperback cover art) that HC have not done.

My thoughts:

Pros: (1) HC should now have full access to the US market, so all of their editions will (fingers crossed) be orderable from US merchants/distribution channels. (2) HC will see much better economies of scale (hopefully) so costs could come down, as they can order print runs that are much larger than they used to.

Cons: (1) The US consumer market is different than the UK/Commonwealth. Hopefully HC will keep on the editorial and marketing teams from HMH and will continue to listen and respond to the US market, but they could well "cut costs" and just let everyone in the US go and ship whatever they would normally do in the UK. (2) Consolidation of publishers is not really a good thing for the world of authors in general, but I don't think this will affect Tolkien much as it has always been the Estate driving things, and that will continue.

Urulókë wrote:

My thoughts:

Cons: (1) The US consumer market is different than the UK/Commonwealth. Hopefully HC will keep on the editorial and marketing teams from HMH and will continue to listen and respond to the US market, but they could well "cut costs" and just let everyone in the US go and ship whatever they would normally do in the UK. (2) Consolidation of publishers is not really a good thing for the world of authors in general, but I don't think this will affect Tolkien much as it has always been the Estate driving things, and that will continue.

Not sure I am understanding point 1. The difference in book quality in Barnes and Noble vs most UK shops seems rather steep to me. The Tolkien shelf at BnN is rather unimpressive so shipping the HC titles here would be a major improvement IMO.

I think the idea is that HC quality may drop as it fills broader demand. It doesn't have to, and I hope it won't, but it might eventually. This is anecdotal, but I believe Americans to be less demanding of their books. We like cheap trade books that can be consumed at the lowest price then forgotten about guilt-free. Higher prices (and better quality) may cause a sizable portion of the market to balk.

Caudimordax wrote:

I think the idea is that HC quality may drop as it fills broader demand. It doesn't have to, and I hope it won't, but it might eventually. This is anecdotal, but I believe Americans to be less demanding of their books. We like cheap trade books that can be consumed at the lowest price then forgotten about guilt-free. Higher prices (and better quality) may cause a sizable portion of the market to balk.

Yep, I would fully expect quality to drop. Americans typically expect and pay far lower prices for books, and consequently the quality is usually far lower. The only way the quality of UK books will remain at its current level is if there is a separate line of US books. My guess is that it will be cheaper and easier to just give everyone the same slightly worse (than current HarperCollins) books and accept the loss of a few of the existing UK customers for whom that doesn't work.

I'm not losing sleep. At this point, I'm only buying editions where there has been a decent addition (e.g. the recent UTs and Sils). Other than that, hard to see what they would be producing that I would be buying - I'm not going down the path of buying all the endless titles in a new deluxe range, even if that range is very pretty. LoTR and Hobbit, yep, but that would be it for me.

Tapuvae wrote:

Urulókë wrote:

My thoughts:

Cons: (1) The US consumer market is different than the UK/Commonwealth. Hopefully HC will keep on the editorial and marketing teams from HMH and will continue to listen and respond to the US market, but they could well "cut costs" and just let everyone in the US go and ship whatever they would normally do in the UK. (2) Consolidation of publishers is not really a good thing for the world of authors in general, but I don't think this will affect Tolkien much as it has always been the Estate driving things, and that will continue.

Not sure I am understanding point 1. The difference in book quality in Barnes and Noble vs most UK shops seems rather steep to me. The Tolkien shelf at BnN is rather unimpressive so shipping the HC titles here would be a major improvement IMO.

My point for #1 is that as of today, in the English language, there are approximately

• HMH: 11 versions of The Lord of the Rings in print
  
• HC: 7 versions of The Lord of the Rings in print
  

By the end of this year, there is a very good chance that there will be 7 versions of The Lord of the Rings in print (the HC ones).

Stu wrote:

I'm not losing sleep. At this point, I'm only buying editions where there has been a decent addition (e.g. the recent UTs and Sils). Other than that, hard to see what they would be producing that I would be buying - I'm not going down the path of buying all the endless titles in a new deluxe range, even if that range is very pretty. LoTR and Hobbit, yep, but that would be it for me.

I’m totally like Stu. I’ve moved past the stage where I am enticed by every new edition that comes out. Sure I’m happy to delight over art, design. and contents, but if there’s nothing that is substantially new textually (commentary, etc.), it’s a no for me personally.