09-21-2007, 03:21 PM | #1 |
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Falling in Love with E-books -- Harlequin does the full "e"
According to Publishers Weekly, romance publisher Harlequin will now be releasing e-book versions of all of their titles simultaneously with the paper versions. That's 120 titles per month.
Okay, okay. So most of the people here don't read romance novels. That's not important. Those who do tend to be voracious readers. They also tend to be well outside of both the SF and gadgeteer profiles, two groups that have already embraced e-books. I see this as an important sign of the e-book industry dipping into the mainstream market. Harlequin also seems to "get it". They're including both MobiPocket and Sony formats, and the e-books will be "priced slightly lower" than the paper versions. |
09-21-2007, 03:45 PM | #2 |
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Many of my wife's older friends will love to hear this as they seem to read about 120 romance novels a month. One already has the Sony Reader and exhausted the Connect Store's offerings in that area. With this news they should sell to the rest of the group.
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09-21-2007, 03:47 PM | #3 | |
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It is a big deal, and it's a very good sign! The folks over at Dear Author (whom we esteem highly) will be pretty happy about it, I expect.
I'm pleased to see that the Sony format is on their list -- no I don't read romance, myself, but it's another sign that the Reader is catching on. This quote is awesome: Quote:
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09-21-2007, 07:21 PM | #4 | |
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http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6465481.html lists them as #33 in the world with over $400 million in annual revenues. Bring it on, baby! Maybe I'll have to buy a reader for my wife for Christmas. |
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09-21-2007, 08:40 PM | #5 | |
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Quote:
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09-21-2007, 09:32 PM | #6 |
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I think that this is great news, not just for romance readers, but for all ebook lovers. Romance readers account for 50% of the mass market purchases so if a great portion of those readers start clamouring for ebooks, all publishers will start to pay attention which is a big benefit for anyone who loves the e format.
Now, we just have to get on Penguin's case for charging a premium for ebooks. |
09-22-2007, 05:07 AM | #7 |
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Will they sell DRM or proper books?
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09-22-2007, 06:51 AM | #8 |
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We're talking here about the ultimate in "read and throw away" books, not literary classics that one would wish to re-read a dozen times. It really is entirely irrelevent for this type of material whether or not it has DRM.
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09-22-2007, 08:05 AM | #9 | |
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They are using DRM. Quote from their site:
Quote:
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09-22-2007, 11:18 AM | #10 |
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I read a mystery ebook recently that I was surprised to find was a Harlequin imprint. So they do more than romance, although maybe not much more. When I visited the site the mystery imprint is "Worldwide Library".
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09-22-2007, 11:36 AM | #11 | |
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I can see that. Romance, itself, has developed a huge number of sub-genres, including time travel romance, SF romance, etc. It would make sense for Harlequin to have other imprints for titles that are more sub- than -genre, so to speak.
The Wikipedia article has this to say: Quote:
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09-22-2007, 11:38 AM | #12 |
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09-22-2007, 03:05 PM | #13 | |
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But in recent years, Harlequin has been attempting to expand beyond those confines, and in the process is broadening the idea of the romance genre. The traditional "bodice ripper" is still with us, but we now see mystery romances, paranormal romances, fantasy romances, and other cross-overs. One current effort is their Luna imprint, which are fantasy romance crossovers. They are interesting in that romance is a sub-plot: the heroine is copying with other concerns, and getting the guy isn't the most important thing on her mind at the time. I'm fond of Laura Anne Gilman's "Retrievers" series, set in a present day New York City where magic happens to work. Her heroine, Wren Valere, is a Talent - someone capable of using a magical force called "current" to perform various actions. In Wren's case, it means she can find and recover missing objects (which often means stealing them back from whoever stole them in the first place). Wren lives in a world where most people are "nulls", incapable of sensing or using magic, and mostly unaware magic and magic users exist. She must cope with the attempts of the Cosa Nostradamus, a mage council, to control all magic users; increasing hostility between normals and magical creatures known as the Fatea; plus developing romantic feelings between her and her "null" business partner, Sergei as she attempts to fulfill contracts Sergei has negotiated for her. Her best friend is a demon named PB who looks like a four foot tall polar bear, and electronic devices misbehave in her presence because current and electricity don't mix well. Great fun, and not at all what you expect in a romance. ______ Dennis |
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09-23-2007, 07:16 AM | #14 | |
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And eh, I really like it that Harlequin is doing this, allthough I already thought they did since I've been on eharlequin quite a few times already Aenea |
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09-23-2007, 07:17 AM | #15 |
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