Dean Koontz, in his latest "Useless News" newsletter (or maybe it should be "newslessletter"?) describes what has to be one of the bigger blunders made by a publishing house.
When he was just starting to make it big, he decided to go back and buy the rights to all his earlier works, many of which were published under pseudonyms (Owen West and Leigh Nichols were two).
When his agent approached Pocket Books seeking to work out a deal for four titles written under the Nichols name, the executive said he could have them for free. "They're worthless anyway. They've been fully exploited. Trying to squeeze additional sales out of them would be a waste of money," he told Koontz and his agent.
Within a year, the first of those four books, "The Servants of Twilight," was republished under Koontz's name by Berkley Books and spent six weeks at No. 1 on the N.Y. Times bestseller list. Koontz said all five of his Leigh Nichols titles went on to become bestsellers, are still in print two decades later, and have been translated into 36 languages.
I have heard a number of stories of poor judgment by publishing industry executives but this one really stands out.
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Toledo, Ohio
June 3, 2008