Digital Imprints Take Root

[stonetools]

Traditional trade publishers have been testing the digital-first/digital-only publishing waters for more than two years now, and the pace is accelerating. This month alone, Penguin is reviving the Dutton Guilt Edged Mysteries line as a digital only imprint, Kensington has launched eKensington as an e-book only imprint, F+W Media is moving its Crimson Romance e-book imprint from a beta test to full launch coinciding with the rollout of its newest e-book subscription site, this one for romance books, while HarperCollins’s Impulse imprint will double its output from one digital title per week to two this fall and will add William Morrow and Harper Voyager to the Impulse line, which began with Avon.

While the publishers see the digital imprints as a way to publish new authors as well as to bring back once popular titles that have gone out of print, they insisted that they are publishing titles in the digital imprints with the same energy as titles in traditional imprints. “This is not a junior imprint,” said Lucia Macro, who manages Impulse at HC. “The same teams that work on print titles work on Impulse.” That includes the rights department; Avon has sold print and digital rights for He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not, plus a second title by Impulse debut author Lena Diaz to Germany. Approximately 80% of Impulse’s titles are original e-books, and the goal, as the imprint moves to embrace Voyager science fiction/fantasy and a variety of Morrow areas, is to keep the majority of titles e-originals, Macro said. The first Voyager title, The Asylum Interviews: Bronx, has just been released.

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Looks like more ebook-only ebooks from the BPHs are on the way. A lot more experimenting with shorter lengths, prices, and even subscriptions, oh my!

[Catlady]

Well ... I'm not impressed with what I've seen thus far in the Impulse line.

[Quexos]

Somehow I am not in such a hurry to see the paper books go the way of the dodo ...

[crossi]

How about paper books mostly being special order hardbacks that are actually good quality collector's editions instead of the cheap excuse for hardbacks a lot of publishers are putting out. Some paper feels like it was printed on recyled paper towels.

[Blossom]

My problem with Impulse is lack of information that keeps me up to date on which titles are coming out and when. They have one page integrated on their awfully design Avon Romance site. It's just covers on a bookshelf you scroll through with no descriptions. There isn't alot of publicity being done for these books. I've bought several impulse books but I had to search at Amazon to find them.

If the same people are responsible for both lines this explains alot.