Suiting an imprint devoted
to teens, Harlequin Teen is devoting a lot of thought and energy to
marketing online in addition to social networking efforts on Facebook,
Twitter, MySpace and others.
The company is offering a prequel to Rachel Vincent's My Soul to Take--a novella called My Soul to Lose--as a free e-book on the eHarlequin
and Harlequin Teen websites and is promoting it through e-retailers as
well as traditional bookstores. The prequel is DRM-free, so that copies
can be forwarded to others. At the Romance Writers of America annual
national conference, which starts today in Washington, D.C., the e-book
is included on a flash drive Harlequin is giving to attendees.
Amy
Jones, product manager, retail single title business team, said that
the effort is "good for Rachel's current base to read while waiting for book and
it's good for new readers because it gives them something to
familiarize themselves with her writing."
For Intertwined
by Gena Showalter, the company is launching a "full viral campaign," as
Jones put it. Announcements will go to Showalter's substantial fan list
and in online advertising. Fans will also be able to watch an author
trailer and post reviews of the book on the site. Moreover, the book
will be promoted through an online game that is based on the book and
centers on memory match questions that refer to the story. (Answers can
be found on the book's website.) When all matches are made, the
readers/contestants win books, T-shirts and other items and are entered
into a contest with a $10,000 prize.
All Harlequin Teen titles
will be released simultaneously in print and e-book versions, which
will have identical prices. The company has a lot of e-experience and
sells e-books to readers on eHarlequin.com. "While our e-book sales are a miniscule part of our overall sales," Wilson said, "they are growing exponentially each year."