The New Wave in Publishing?

Bob Miller's start-up with HarperCollins was the result of his "feeling restless and didn't know what next mountain to climb." The idea, to be called a "studio," involves a 50/50 profit share with authors along with minimal advances but not selling everything on a non-returnable basis, although that would be a longer term goal.
Seeing publishing as "a race for margin" and stating "the current model is pretty broken," Miller added, "it's too tempting not to try" to improve on that paradigm. He sees the idea as focused on "mostly nonfiction" titles by authors who do not yet have established reputations and possibly providing a niche for books longer than articles but shorter than the average.

While publishing certainly needs new ideas—a great deal of what's printed is wasted, with some sources saying only one book is sold for every two books printed if you exclude POD—it would appear that Miller model would place a heavier burden on authors to promote their own books. Somewhere in there, they're going to have to find the time to write the next one. I will be interesting to see how this one plays out.