Avon Romance Invites Readers to “Share Your Book” Online

NEW YORK, NY, April 24, 2013 — The recent redesign of the Avon Romance website, which integrated a dynamic blog feed featuring community-generated content, has fueled the emergence of a lively writing forum. Now, the publisher couldn’t be more pleased to announce the launch of the “Share Your Book” functionality at AvonRomance.com.

“This site gives readers the opportunity to interact with each other, as well as authors and editors, posting content and reviews. Many are placing excerpts from their own romance works-in-progress online for the community to review and rate,” shares Liate Stehlik, SVP and publisher of Avon Books and William Morrow. “So much talent is bubbling out of fan fiction sites and online writing communities; it was a natural progression for our site to include a special forum dedicated to emerging talent,” she continues.

“Share Your Book” is a unique experience: contributors can receive comments and critiques from their peers, as well as Avon editors, who will pop into the forum with occasional advice on individual submissions. Romance enthusiasts are thrilled that their excerpts live alongside those published by Avon’s authors, who also use the site to promote their own books. Visitors to the site “favorite” the submissions so readers and editors can easily see which are the most popular.

“With ‘Share Your Book,’ we are reaffirming our passion for nurturing new talent, as well as giving aspiring romance writers a communal space in which to test out new ideas and receive feedback from their peers and industry professionals,” says Shawn Nicholls, Senior Director of Marketing for Avon Books. “This addition enhances the community-centered feel Avon Books strives to create on the site,” he continues. “Much of the content is contributor-based, with bloggers, authors, and readers invited to submit their own posts to appear on the blog.”

The introduction of “Share Your Book” was created at the request of Avon’s keen editorial team. Avon is constantly on the search for fresh voices: several years ago, they discovered vibrant new authors, including New York Times bestseller Tessa Dare, in a publisher-sponsored, author-supported fan fiction contest. More recently, Avon paired with NaNoWriMo to support aspiring romance authors during National Novel Writing Month (and in the next few months, acquisitions from that partnership will be announced and scheduled for publication later this year). The editorial team also focuses on national bestseller lists, looking for self-published authors who would be a great fit for one of America’s leading romance publishers.

Avon’s digital product team also rolled out a cadre of site enhancements to support this new forum, as well as the interactive blog featured on the AvonRomance.com homepage. Users can enjoy better commenting functionality, the ability to “love” a post, and a more efficient contributor dashboard, which allows users to tag posts on their own blogs so that they feed into AvonRomance.com blog queue. Contributors can also submit blog posts directly on the site.

AvonRomance.com website is committed to growing a warm and welcoming virtual “home,” where romance authors, readers, reviews and bloggers all freely interact with one another online. Related content on the site also includes: advance reads and access to special samplers; expert recommendations by the “Avon Addicts,” a special group of romance super-readers; streaming events; and monthly contests, giveaways and sweeps.

More information about how to join the Avon Romance community can be found at AvonRomance.com.

Source: Press Release