Is there any money in theatre books?
Monday, July 7th, 2008New plays, says publisher Nick Hern in his interview with me (in listenNOW), are the lifeblood of theatre. Agreed. But how do you find them? And what do publishers get out of printing them?
In this engrossing and entertaining discussion, Nick Hern (who this year celebrates the 20th birthday of his company) outlines how most playwrights see their published plays as stepping stones to their next work, and how (for people like him who print and distribute plays) they are a slow burn. It takes years to make a profit from new plays.
And, as more and more new plays are published, things have only got harder. When Nick Hern was at Methuen, some plays were published in quantities of tens of thousands: not any more. So, is the market glutted? Thank goodness for theatres that use playtexts as programmes for their productions: a real lifeline.
For all this, and some really good stories about the highs and lows of publishing, listen to this interview.
