• Authors
    • Diverse Voices
    • Meet Our Editors
    • Author and Event Requests
    • Submissions Guidelines
  • Books
    • What We Publish >
      • Children's Books >
        • Children's Books
        • Dawn Publications
        • Little Pickle Press
        • Baby University
        • Baby Medical School
        • Regional Books
      • Young Adult
      • Fiction
      • Mystery
      • Romance
      • Nonfiction >
        • Nonfiction
        • Reference
        • Fiske Guide to Colleges
        • College Reference
    • Catalogs
    • Bestsellers
    • Bookmarked for Book Clubs
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Booksellers
    • Indie Booksellers
    • Sales Partners and Reps >
      • Gift Sales >
        • 2023 Sell Sheets
        • Regional Sell Sheets
        • Personalized at Retail Sell Sheets
      • Gift Stores and Catalogs
      • Corporate and Bulk Sales
      • International Customers
      • Foreign Rights
  • Librarians and Educators
  • Shop
  • About Us
    • COVID Resources >
      • Virtual Events
      • Sourcebooks Open License Online Story Time and Classroom Read-Aloud Videos and Live Events
      • Activities for Kids At Home
    • Books & Buzz Blog
Sourcebooks
  • Authors
    • Diverse Voices
    • Meet Our Editors
    • Author and Event Requests
    • Submissions Guidelines
  • Books
    • What We Publish >
      • Children's Books >
        • Children's Books
        • Dawn Publications
        • Little Pickle Press
        • Baby University
        • Baby Medical School
        • Regional Books
      • Young Adult
      • Fiction
      • Mystery
      • Romance
      • Nonfiction >
        • Nonfiction
        • Reference
        • Fiske Guide to Colleges
        • College Reference
    • Catalogs
    • Bestsellers
    • Bookmarked for Book Clubs
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Booksellers
    • Indie Booksellers
    • Sales Partners and Reps >
      • Gift Sales >
        • 2023 Sell Sheets
        • Regional Sell Sheets
        • Personalized at Retail Sell Sheets
      • Gift Stores and Catalogs
      • Corporate and Bulk Sales
      • International Customers
      • Foreign Rights
  • Librarians and Educators
  • Shop
  • About Us
    • COVID Resources >
      • Virtual Events
      • Sourcebooks Open License Online Story Time and Classroom Read-Aloud Videos and Live Events
      • Activities for Kids At Home
    • Books & Buzz Blog

 books and  buzz Blog

Why An EBook Readers Club For Romance Readers?

4/11/2012

 
by Dominique Raccah

About two years ago, I came to the conclusion that we needed to have a decidedly more direct relationship with our readers. I was especially intrigued by watching some of the smart ways publishers in other spaces (most notably O'Reilly and Baen) were engaging with their readers. It also came from watching how e-tailers like Amazon.com repeatedly used their customer information to build products, services and user engagement. Having a direct, ongoing relationship with our readers could not only make solid business sense, it could also help create enormous impact for our authors.

Discover a New Love is our first major project in this direction. Its focus is primarily on lovers of great romance novels, or novels with strong romantic elements. Among other things, we believe it will make us a stronger publisher—one better able to satisfy the desires of our readers. We believe we'll be better able to further the careers of our authors and to provide insights that may prove useful to our retail partners, as well as our authors, their agents and our international publishing partners. We think it will actually help us to create better books and market them in more interesting ways.

​Specifically we’re hoping to accomplish 3 things:
  1. FEEDBACK: We need to be constantly learning to make better books, particularly in a world as noisy and crowded as that of romance novels. To do so, we actually need to ask more questions and gather more data. We need to learn more about what really can make a difference. It’s one of the essential ways that publishers can add value for authors.
  2. COMMUNITY: We think we can create new ways of connecting authors to readers. We’re going to start with regular parties online and several live events throughout the year. Your hostess is the incomparable Barbara Vey! We’re launching at the RT Booklovers Conference here in Chicago this week!
  3. TRENDS: Having a place to listen and learn: What do readers want more of?  What do they want next? What new directions is romance fiction going? As Joe Wikert pointed out “One of the most important reasons publishers should invest in a direct channel is because of all the data it provides.”

Fundamentally, we’re interested in one problem: how can we help a reader discover the next book or author they will love?

We know people who read Susanna Kearsley love her books, so how do we help more readers to discover her books? (And so on for other authors obviously.)

​Like many new developments, we expect how we tackle this problem to evolve—starting immediately. Here are some of the ideas we’re starting with:
  • In response to reader demand, many of the eBooks will be available all over the world. It won’t be for all titles due to some contract restrictions, but we’re paying attention and looking for ways to connect the world-over.
  • The eBooks offered will be Digital Rights Management (DRM) free and portable to ALL eReader devices. We want readers to own the ebooks and for those ebooks to be portable across eReading devices and platforms. DRM is controversial because on the one hand it offers some protection from piracy (people disagree with how much). On the other hand, it’s hard on consumers—they can’t share, they can’t take advantage of all the devices they own. And there are many who don’t like it. The question is how best to balance these competing interests?
  • We invite other publishers to join us (though as the Wall Street Journal pointed out DRM may well be an issue for others). Possibly more to come on that topic.

Discover a New Love is not intended to replace our valued partnerships and promotions with other retailers. Many who know Sourcebooks know we’re aggressive in testing promotions that find both greater readership and value for our authors, so we do and will continue to do frontlist and themed ebook promotions with our retail partners. Discover a New Love is envisioned as another avenue to help readers. If you’re a romance reader, it’s one more platform for discovery (with loads of neat pluses). The data we’ve seen shows that romance readers are heavy users and that they buy from many different outlets. We see this is an expansion and addition to the current space.

Discover a New Love is a new model built directly in response to what we’ve heard from authors, agents and readers. Expect a lot of changes from us. This is just the beginning. And we look forward to learning together.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions are all welcome.

With warmest wishes,

​Dominique

Comments are closed.
    Welcome to the Sourcebooks Books and Buzz Blog!
    ​

    Click a category below, search for a specific author, book, or topic.

    Categories for each of our imprints are as follows:
    • Casablanca:  Adult Romance
    • Jabberwocky:  Children's
    • Landmark: Adult Fiction
    • Fire: Young Adult
    • Nonfiction:  Adult Nonfiction

    Categories

    All
    Amazon
    America's Test Kitchen
    Awards
    Barnes & Noble
    Bestsellers
    BookExpo
    Bookstores
    Casablanca
    Corporate
    Data
    EBooks
    Employees
    Events
    Fire
    Ignite Reads
    Indie Next
    Interviews
    Jabberwocky
    Kids
    Landmark
    Libraries
    Media And News
    News
    Non Fiction
    Poisoned Pen Press
    Publishing
    Put Me In The Story
    Reviews
    Selections And Picks
    Sesame Street
    Simple Truths
    Sourcebooks News
    Sourcebooks Young Readers
    Starred Reviews
    TLA
    Trade Reviews
    Trade Shows

    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    July 2009
    June 2009
    April 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009

    RSS Feed

About

About Us
Our Story
​Careers
Blog
Newsletters
Outreach

Authors

Author & Book Buzz
Our Authors
​Submissions
Author Toolkit
​Editorial Contacts

Resources

Catalogs
For Book Clubs 
​All Books
Privacy Policy
CA Privacy
Rights & Permissions

Support

Contact Us
​Customer Support
Technical Support
Desk Copy Request
CPSIA
Accessibility

Sourcebooks LinkedIn
Sourcebooks Twitter
Sourcebooks Facebook
Sourcebooks Kids Pinterest
Sourcebooks Instagram
© COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Authors
    • Diverse Voices
    • Meet Our Editors
    • Author and Event Requests
    • Submissions Guidelines
  • Books
    • What We Publish >
      • Children's Books >
        • Children's Books
        • Dawn Publications
        • Little Pickle Press
        • Baby University
        • Baby Medical School
        • Regional Books
      • Young Adult
      • Fiction
      • Mystery
      • Romance
      • Nonfiction >
        • Nonfiction
        • Reference
        • Fiske Guide to Colleges
        • College Reference
    • Catalogs
    • Bestsellers
    • Bookmarked for Book Clubs
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Booksellers
    • Indie Booksellers
    • Sales Partners and Reps >
      • Gift Sales >
        • 2023 Sell Sheets
        • Regional Sell Sheets
        • Personalized at Retail Sell Sheets
      • Gift Stores and Catalogs
      • Corporate and Bulk Sales
      • International Customers
      • Foreign Rights
  • Librarians and Educators
  • Shop
  • About Us
    • COVID Resources >
      • Virtual Events
      • Sourcebooks Open License Online Story Time and Classroom Read-Aloud Videos and Live Events
      • Activities for Kids At Home
    • Books & Buzz Blog