Coming on the heels of the Samhain announcement on Monday of the joint venture with Kensington that will see a Samhain imprint as part of the Kensington line, is the news that Ellora’s Cave will be upping the number of books to be published and distributed through Simon & Schuster.
Pocket Books began releasing Ellora’s Cave anthologies beginning in 2006. The first one was, All She Wants, with Jaid Black, Shiloh Walker and Dominique Adair. It was a Christmas anthology and was featured as a “Hot Read” in Cosmo magazine.
Currently, 20+ authors are involved in the Simon & Schuster/EC partnership and more will be include as the 2008 line up will expand to single titles. Last week, the two parties met at BEA to discuss the future of the relationship. The anthologies have been well received and they agreed to produce 13 more anthologies (for a total of 39 more novellas). Pocket pays Ellora’s Cave and EC is responsible for paying the royalties to the authors. Ellora’s Cave acquires, edits and chooses the books for inclusion in the publishing program with S&S. There has been no discussion of mass market titles and thus, these books are likely to be in the shelves of bookstores, both chain and independent.
Jordan Summers has some interesting thoughts on the impact of the partnering of epublishers and NY publishers.
Edited to add: I forgot to mention that if I were to pick one anthology for purchase and/or read, it would be Taming Him with Kimberly Dean, Summer Devon, and Michelle Pillow. Fun and sexy reads.
