Teamwork

Most publishers do not allow their books to come out in cheap paperback reprints until sales in hard covers have petered out. Last week they were beginning to wonder if they had been wrong. They noted that the deal by which Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine Books published Cameron Hawley's Executive Suite (TIME, Dec. 8) simultaneously in $3 hard-cover and 35-c- paperback editions seemed to be a solid success. Ballantine, which has sold 375,000 copies in soft covers, is getting ready to print at least 100,000 more, a big sale for a paperback. Houghton Mifflin has already sold 20,500 hardback copies (v. an average sale of under 10,000 for most novels), and Executive Suite is still on the bestseller lists. Instead of hurting hardback sales, the cheap edition seems to have helped by giving the book more publicity. Houghton Mifflin has brought out four other titles the same way.

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