Spark, Bloomsbury’s new digital imprint, will be “asking authors to be a voice for the imprint”…
It wasn’t long ago that publishers thought of digital media primarily as a marketing tool for the books they were already publishing.
No longer. Digital is at the center of several new initiatives in young adult and children’s publishing.
“Ebooks are definitely different,” said Cindy Loh, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books, speaking at the Launch Kids conference at Digital Book World 2014 in New York today, “the way you experience them, the way you create them, the way you market them.” According to Loh, that new reality drove the launch last month of the digital imprint Bloomsbury Spark.
In addition to aggressively pushing translation rights to develop global markets on a local basis, Spark will also market its line of titles together to develop its brand profile. That means “asking authors to be a voice for the imprint,” said Loh, so that the imprint can serve as a virtual community for readers.
The key measure of success, though, is whether voracious young adult readers are coming back for more. Audience engagement is at least as critical to publishers’ success as are individual sales.
via Digital Engagement Is Key, Say Children’s and Young Adult Publishers | Digital Book World.
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