Coming Soon(er): Beast Books

Tina Brown wants to speed up the publishing cycle of books:

The Daily Beast is forming a new imprint, Beast Books, that will focus on publishing timely titles by Daily Beast writers — first as e-books, and then as paperbacks on a much shorter schedule than traditional books.

On a typical publishing schedule, a writer may take a year or more to deliver a manuscript, after which the publisher takes another nine months to a year to put finished books in stores. At Beast Books, writers would be expected to spend one to three months writing a book, and the publisher would take another month to produce an e-book edition.

The books themselves will be lightweight, too. Brown envisions titles at 40,000 words, or about 150 pages. Scheduled for December, Attack of the Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America, by John P. Avlon, will be the imprint’s first book.

But, I wonder, can you print them with one of these?