Publishing Innovator of the Year: Harlequin
As Easy as It Looks?
While Harlequin has made many of its pioneering efforts look easy, every innovation has its challenges, says Lewis. “… We’re creating something new, and [that’s] my favorite part of my job. Sometimes people look at you with eyes that say, ‘You want to do what?!’” he says.
As an example, Lewis cites enriched e-book editions: “We put extra content into the e-book [such as] author notes, alternative endings, character backgrounds, etc. This has been a building process, and numerous efforts never saw the light of day, as we felt they were not good enough.”
Key to implementing innovative ideas, suggests Vallik, is the ability “to get past some of the existing systems and processes that could block you. I think a good example for us is just even launching e-books, where we quickly went from doing seven books a month to doing 120. It was a small, dedicated team, and we went out [and] figured how we could do it without putting extra weight onto the existing systems because there is a lot already going on.”