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authors is driving up the prices enormously," cautions Robert Bern–
stein, the courtly red-haired human rights activist who is Random
House's president and chairman of the board . "It is an almost im–
possible game to win." That hasn't prevented Random House's own
flagship imprint from playing the game with fierce aggressiveness in
the last three years; its list of expensive recent acquisitions includes a
new John Jakes novel (for well over $4 million) and Barbara Taylor
Bradford's next three gushers. In the blockbuster sweepstakes , Ran–
dom House is seen to be competing head to head with Morrow , Put–
nam, Bantam, Viking-Penguin, and-above all-its traditional
rival, Simon
&
Schuster. "You're going to see only a few big players,
because only a few can afford to play," Bernstein predicts. "It's a very
dangerous business."
The paradox is that big-budget books are supposed to eliminate
risk, not create it. According to the theory of "brand-name publish–
ing," a James Michener, a Danielle Steele, or a Stephen King is
money in the bank at whatever the price, because the mass reading
public - people who get intimidated at old-fashioned downtown
bookstores but feel right at home in a Walden or a B. Dalton-want
in a book what a hamburger-consumer wants when he wanders over
to the twin yellow arches of a McDonald's: utter reliability, no sur–
prises. Hence you get, as a rule, a lot of book for the buck when you
buy futures in a Michener. In effect, the publisher of a big ticket
item is paying for the author's established track record - and wager–
ing that he or she will continue to please a loyal following and attract
new readers. Generally the theory works well, says Richard Snyder,
the hard-nosed head of Simon
&
Schuster's $1.2 billion publishing
empire: "It's almost the safest investment you can have in trade
publishing."
It is possible that, misled by the headlines, we have overesti–
mated both the commercial and the cultural significance of the
blockbuster complex. It seems to be a common feeling among pub–
lishers - including those who have a hard time justifying the six–
figure advances that agents are demanding and authors are get–
ting- that an accumulation of unearned advances, rather than the
failure of a ballyhooed big book, will be the iceberg that sinks any
particular Titanic. (It's far easier to miscalculate on the future sales
potential of a celebrated first novelist than on that of a veteran pro–
ducer of potboilers.) As for the other main concern generated by
the blockbuster complex - the fear that high-priced rubbish will
drive quality lit out of the marketplace -let it be noted that the
