Dec 29 2010

Wednesday Midday Links: Discoverability of Digital Backlist Titles

By Jane • Publishing News • • Tags: , , ,

This was tweeted by Zoe Archer someone (I now forget, maybe Rose Fox?) and I thought it was an interesting article. According to a new book, a female led shoplifting gang was an underworld power to be reckoned with in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Hidden in Britain’s underworld are characters and little known gangsters who have received only fleeting comments on their careers,” he said. “Far from being side men and women, some of these villains – especially the women – deserved starring roles.”

Born in 1896 in Southwark, Annie Diamond became queen of the gang when she was 20. She ruled with military precision, dividing the gang into cells to ransack a single shop or raid a series of shops across the city simultaneously. To the police, she was “the cleverest of thieves” and called Diamond Annie, because she had a “punch to beware of”, said McDonald, thanks to fists studded with diamond rings.

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Here is a short and interesting article about consumer consumption of entertainment/media:

In 2010, consumers spent an average of 4 hours and 24 minutes each day watching TV and video, while being online for 2 hours and 35 minutes. Mobile devices received an average of 50 minutes' worth of attention every day-’the same amount of time allotted to newspapers and magazines combined. eMarketer expects that time spent with mobile devices will continue to increase, most likely taking time away from print media.

I’ve always maintained that the biggest threat to the book is other forms of entertainment such as social media, the internet, games (oh Angry Birds, I love and hate you). Publishers are trying to reach out and garner some of that audience by translating their books into games. Nora Roberts’ wedding series, Marjorie Liu’s paranormals and Harlequin Presents are some books that have made the transition. Avon Romance has made an online interactive game for Stephanie Laurens’ recent releases.

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Gotham Writers’ Workshop is running a Writer’s Wish List Sweepstakes offering an iPad, Kindle, writing classes, books and magazines as prizes. No purchase necessary. Entry deadline is Jan. 1, 2011. To enter visit:

http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/WishList.php

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Mark Coker gave some predictions about publishing in 2011. More authors will self publish and prices will go down because of the glut of supply.

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This article about adults loving kids books kind of rehashes things we already know but I did think that these tidbits would be interesting for our YA lovers:

Dystopian young-adult literature, for one, “is still going strong,” said Angie Lee, the vice president of marketing at Harper Collins, in a conversation somewhere around the hors d’oeuvres table. (See the bestselling “Matched,” by Ally Condie, which has much in common with “The Hunger Games,” minus the children killing children.)

Meanwhile, another claimed the adult trade market was looking for the kinds of stories now being told in the romance and young-adult genres.

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I’m a bit frustrated by the lack of information we readers have about the digital backlist titles. Mike Shatkzin blogged yesterday about the importance of the backlist for publishers and he suggests a few ways to market those books. Avon started doing press releases of its digital backlist titles although I haven’t seen one recently. Harlequin is pretty good about sending me the list of titles that I can post, but it does seem very hard to find this information. One person on twitter noted that Laura Lee Guhrke’s older books are now digitized. Breathless is one of my favorite Guhrke titles. I wish, though, the prices were lower.

Jennifer Horsman’s backlist books are also being re-released. (I remember the zebra heart fondly. Talk about branding.) But holy crap, Kensington, $9.99. You’ve got to be kidding.

Backlist titles don’t compete with frontlist titles for pricing, they compete with used book store prices.

I guess my question is, price notwithstanding, how are readers supposed to discover these books? I suppose I could set up an author submitted site (like lostbooksales but for authors to submit the release of their digital backlists)? Suggestion readers? authors?

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