Marketing

In the two months since launching the first female-focused mobile phone entertainment application, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., the Toronto-based publisher best-known for its romance and women’s fiction, says it’s seeing success with its first foray into wireless content. Partnering up with Vocel, a San Diego-based publisher of applications for mobile phones and other wireless devices, Harlequin began offering its mass-market stories to download at the end of April. So far, subscribers have paid $2.49 a month to receive a serialized chapter-a-day of three new stories delivered to their phones or PDAs. “We are very excited about the initial response to Harlequin On The Go,” says

A news story about a partnership with a book publisher and a cosmetics company set off a blizzard of discussion last week around the industry about what the proper role between product placement deals in publishing and the readership it intends to target should be. In an article published in The New York Times on June 12, reporter Motoko Rich set off the debate about a new promotional relationship between Running Press, an imprint of Perseus Book Group, and Cover Girl, a division of Proctor and Gamble. The deal will see Cover Girl products being mentioned in the pages of the upcoming young adult novel,

When Klaus Fritsch moved to the United States in 1967 and then teamed with Arnie Morton to co-found Morton’s, The Steakhouse in 1978, the West German probably never envisioned penning a 240-page “bible” on steak. But almost 30 years after opening the first of what has become a chain of more than 70 restaurants worldwide, Fritsch has done just that. “Morton’s Steak Bible” is the first-ever publishing effort from the company that made its name in the kitchen—not the book store. Roger Drake, Morton’s vice president of communications and public relations, says finding the right publisher to get behind the book was the first

Grandma Janet Mary Sinke has some story to tell. A grandmother of eight (with a ninth on the way) who is battling Parkinson’s Disease—a neurological condition affecting the motor system—she started her own independent publishing company, My Grandma and Me Publishers, in 2003. Despite having no publishing experience to draw upon, Sinke’s books have been recognized for their innovative marketing efforts. Two of her recent works—“Grandma’s Treasure Chest” and “Grandpa’s Fishin’ Friend”—were finalists for the PMA’s (The Independent Book Publishers Association) 2006 Ben Franklin Award for children’s picture book, with the latter title taking home the honor. In addition, she has sold more than

‘The Passion of Mary Magdalen’ Monkfish Book Publishing Co., an independent press in Rhinebeck, N.Y., has high hopes for “The Passion of Mary Magdalen,” the central book in the trilogy “The Maeve Chronicles.” With a first printing of 5,000, the company has already had orders for 2,500 copies from wholesalers and distributors. “It is a great book with a lot of different angles to pursue,” says Paul Cohen publisher and co-founder of Monkfish. “One of the more interesting is the marketing of the character Maeve (aka Mary Magdalen) as a feisty Celt and an endearing character.” “The Passion” is a historical fantasy focusing

Workman Publishing’s release of “The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music” marks the culmination of author Ted Libbey’s 11-year odyssey. Libbey, known at one time to classical music fans and listeners of National Public Radio (NPR) as the station’s commentator on the popular “Performance Today” program, is one of the country’s most distinguished classical music critics. The book aims to be the classical music fan’s do-it-all resource—from educating readers on different terms, styles and genres to providing Libbey’s musical criticisms. Most notable, however, is the interactive element: Buyers are given a password that gives them access to a special Web site—run by Naxos, a

Book publishers have used catalogs to sell their titles for many years. However, in this digital age, the advent of digital catalogs would seem to be a foregone conclusion, especially as many magazines launch digital counterparts. These digital editions—more than Web sites featuring content—actually mimic the print publications, some even creating a visual page-turning experience. According to those in the digital catalog business, there may be as many as a dozen vendors offering book publishers the ability to recreate the look-and-feel of their print catalogs in digital form. Still, the concept has yet to become a sweeping trend. In fact, some solutions providers

‘Owen and Mzee: the True Story of a Remarkable Friendship’ The bond between a baby hippotamus orphaned during the Asian tsunami and a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise is the basis for a recently released children’s book publsihed by Scholastic Inc. Written by Craig Hatkoff, his seven-year-old daughter, Isabella, and Dr. Paula Kahumba of Lafarge Eco Systems, operators of Haller Park in Kenya where the animals live, “Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship” tells the story of how these two animals came together. Inspiration for the Hatkoff’s to write Owen and Mzee’s story came after the two saw the pair’s picture

Last month, as fans eagerly awaited the October 3 premiere of David Fincher’s adaptation of "Gone Girl," they took to social media, making Gillian Flynn’s 2012 megabestseller the most buzzed-about title online in September.

Publishers are finding they must engage directly with consumers, and fortunately they have a powerful tool for doing that: content—and lots of it. The challenge is then to provide opportunities for engagement, rise above the noise to attract the most relevant audiences, and do so efficiently