HarperCollins is in the midst of a total rebranding effort when it comes to selling books. In July they relaunched their United States website and started to market eBooks directly to customers. This has been a deemed a success by the top executives and they have now expanded into the UK.
The New HarperCollins UK site has been relaunched with the express purpose of selling eBooks directly. The publisher prompts users to download and install their HC Reader app, which is used to read any purchases on iOS and Android.
HC derives 24% of their revenue from eBooks, so there is still a viable market for print. You can order tangible books from the UK website, but instead of buying them from HC directly you are redirected to Amazon, Waterstones and W H Smith. The publisher hopes to make physical books available directly through the site in December.
One of the most compelling aspect of the HC UK website is author profiles. You can read their biography, check out their social media profiles, get put on a mailing list for book tours and events or look at their upcoming titles.
Australia Has A New Children’s Laureate
HARPERCOLLINS CONGRATULATES NEW AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S LAUREATE JACKIE FRENCH
HarperCollins is delighted to congratulate Jackie French on her appointment to the role of Australian Children’s Laureate for 2014-15.‘Jackie French is one of Australia’s most amazing authors and we are thrilled to see her contribution to Australian storytelling recognised,’ says HarperCollins chief executive officer James Kellow. ‘We are enormously proud to be her publisher and look forward to introducing many more Australian children to Jackie’s wonderful and engaging range of books during her tenure.’
New Applegate Trilogy To Begin With Ending
On the basis of a three-sentence proposal, HarperCollins has signed Katherine Applegate, who won this year’s Newbery Medal for The One and Only Ivan, for a middle-grade trilogy that will begin with Endling, likely in 2016. Tara Weikum, v-p and editorial director of HarperCollins Children’s Books, acquired North American rights to the three books in a deal brokered by Elena Giovinazzo of Pippin Properties. The agent, who has represented Applegate for a year and a half, was as intrigued as the author was when she read the definition of “endling,” which appears on Wikipedia: “One of the proposed names for an individual animal that is the last of its species or subspecies.”
Intrigued by the word, Applegate dashed off a brief, vague book proposal based on it, and sent it to her agent, who liked the idea. “This is the first time I’ve made a deal based on such a short description,” Giovinazzo said. “We were looking for a new home for Katherine at HarperCollins, since her editor, Anne Hoppe, had left to join Clarion in January, and we decided Tara would be a wonderful match for her. Since we hadn’t yet lined up a project for the two of them, this was a great idea to pitch to Tara. And lo and behold, she liked it.” Though the agent declined to specify the terms of the deal, she noted, “It was a significant deal befitting a Newbery-winning author who also has an incredibly successful commercial track.”
Book Trailer Competition Opportunity from Harper Collins
Love Monster and The Perfect Present
Book Trailer competition
HarperCollins Children’s Books present an exciting opportunity for artistic students to create an original piece of work and to take a glimpse into the remarkable world of Rachel Bright.
Read the full publisher pdf – or the details as set out below:
HarperCollins Children’s books present an exciting opportunity for artistic students to create an original piece of work and to take a glimpse into the remarkable world of Rachel Bright.
HarperCollins are offering the chance for creative arts undergraduates and graduates to create an original trailer that will capture the readers’ imagination and promote the release of Rachel Bright’s new book, Love Monster & the Perfect Present.
Due for release in September this book will be a fantastic Christmas gift for both children and fans of The Bright Side range. Following the success of Love Monster by award-winning wordsmith and illustrator Rachel Bright, love is in the air again in this heartwarming, remember-the-importantthings-in-life story about how presents don’t have to cost the earth to mean the world!
About the Competition:
To enter the competition students must concept, storyboard, make and edit a 1.5-3 minute engaging trailerfor Love Monster and the Perfect Present, focused on the theme of giving. Entrants can use real-time footage, timelapse, animation, author interview questions or a combination of all four and will have access to Rachel Bright for interviews & information, as well as imagery from the book, though all additional content must be free from copyright (all components must be original or royalty free). Trailer entries must be in by November 29
th 2013 and can be entered by individuals or collaborative groups. The prize winner(s) will receive:
• £500
• Full credits on the trailer
• A fantastic 3 day work experience placement at Rachel’s Brightside Studios
Five lucky runners-up will have their videos featured on both the HarperCollins and Rachel Bright blogs as well as receiving signed prints from the book.bout Rachel Bright:
As the 2013 World Book Day illustrator and the creator of the successful card and gift range, The Bright Side (selling over five million cards across the UK, America and Australia), it is no surprise that Rachel was also recently selected for the Top 100 Courvoisier/ Observer ‘Rising stars to watch’ and is soon to be featured in a book about creative entrepreneurs as a result.
Rachel will be giving a talk for students and creative professionals on 29th September as part of
this year’s Bath Festival of Children’s Literature – don’t miss it!
You can find out more online at http://www.lookonthebrightside.co.uk/ or follow Rachel on
Twitter: @Rachel_Bright2
Cover to Cover: How are book jackets designed?
3 minute video about the way in which HarperCollins goes about generating book jacket designs…
BBC News visited HarperCollins publishers in London to find out how the book cover for Nathan Filer’s debut novel was created.
via BBC News – Cover to Cover: How are book jackets designed?.
HarperCollins Audience Development Director Jim Hanas
Recommended interview from Digital Book World, with Jim Hanas, HarperCollins’ new director of audience development
HarperCollins, one of the world’s largest publishing companies, has been remaking its marketing efforts, starting with hiring a new chief marketing officer who comes from outside of book publishing, Angela Tribelli. As expected, Tribelli has started bringing on other professionals to help execute her vision.
Enter Jim Hanas, HarperCollins’ new director of audience development as of Feb. 2013. In other media companies, audience development departments help build lasting relationships with customers through email and data acquisition, social media engagement and more. Before his current role, Hanas had never held a position at a publishing house, but, in a way, he’s the ultimate insider when it comes to digital publishing.
Hanas comes to HarperCollins from the New York Observer, where he was the social media editor. There, he helped grow the social media audience of the New York media property while changing the culture of the newsroom. Prior to that, he held positions at New York-based start-up Sonnet Media, NYC & Company (where he worked with Tribelli), Print Magazine (sister publication to DBW), Radar Magazine and other media properties. He has a bachelor’s of philosophy and psychology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a master’s of philosophy from the University of Memphis.
In addition to his online media experience, Hanas has been publishing ebooks before most people in publishing knew what they were. He self-published his first ebook, Single, in 2006, a collection of two of his previously published stories – a radical experiment at the time. That release and other such experiments led him to an ebook publishing deal in 2010 with Toronto-based ECW Press for his story collection Why They Cried.
We spoke with Hanas about moving from online media to books, how he plans to help HarperCollins find an audience for each of its titles and how Digital Book World helped him get a leg up in digital publishing.
Link takes you to the interview…