HarperCollins Launches Digital-First Fiction Line for “Transformational” Literature

Yesterday HarperCollins announced the launch of HarperLegend, a part of the HarperOne imprint. HarperLegend will publish “visionary and transformational fiction in the digital-first format,” reports HarperCollins in a press release. The line will also accept manuscripts by un-agented writers. HarperOne’s publisher, Mark Tauber told Publishers’ Weekly that the decision to accept un-agented writers is part of an effort to “open ourselves to a wider group of potential authors in the [fiction] space.”

The HarperLegend model seems to emulate other HarperCollins digital-first imprints, like Avon Impulse and Witness Impulse. Like those imprints, HarperLegend authors will not receive an advance, but will earn 25% royalty on a title and 50% royalty after 10,000 copies are sold. Additionally, the goal of the imprint seems similar, to test new voices and ideas in ebook form, and then publish the most successful in print. Avon Impulse has done this through the Avon Books imprint, and it seems HarperLegend will do the same through the HarperOne imprint.

Read the full press release on HarperLegend’s launch here.