Site Features Full Book Previews Linked to Charity Initiative

Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, is proud to announce the launch of a dynamic new website at http://www.avonbooks.com. The http://www.avonbooks.com site is a groundbreaking home for the active romance community, featuring sneak peeks at forthcoming novels, full access to beloved backlist gems, content-rich author microsites, expansive beyond the book content, original videos, author essays, sweepstakes and book tour information. There will even be a direct click-thru to Romance Radio

(http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/authorsonair/romanceradio), a new

BlogTalkRadio.com station hosted by Avon Books which gives voice to the

writers of America's most popular fiction genre.

The site showcases HarperCollins' "Browse Inside" feature, which enables readers to flip through chapters of new and backlist
books online, creating a "virtual bookstore" reading experience. The new http://www.avonbooks.com site will also roll out Avon's exclusive Love Gives Back

(http://www.harpercollins.com/Imprints/Avon/features/lovegivesback/index.aspx)

campaign, which allows readers to preview the opening chapter of the season's Avon romances two full weeks before they are in stores! In addition, a number of Avon authors' favorite books will be available online in their entirety, for free, within the Browse Inside reader, throughout the summer and fall. As fans view the pages
of the new advance preview books, Avon Books will track these visits and donate books to ProLiteracy Worldwide (http://www.proliteracy.org), a nonprofit international organization that champions the life-changing benefits of literacy for adults and their families by sponsoring educational programs that help adults and their families acquire

the literacy practices and skills they need to function more effectively in

their daily lives.

Liate Stehlik, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Avon Books, notes, "The recent explosion of viral marketing tools provides evidence that easily accessible online content (videos, audio, and interactive text) has forever changed the way that readers reach out to the authors they love, and discover what they want to be reading next. Online interactivity is the future of the romance genre -- and romance readers are among the most tech-savvy of all consumers; we've created Avon's new web presence specifically to enable readers to get a more integrated experience of author, book and community."

Avonbooks.com aspires to be the top online destination site for romance readers. The site will actively bring fans closer to authors; help them discover new authors, and keep consumers entertained with fresh, updated content. Sneak previews of upcoming titles and full access to backlist favorites are expected to help increase the site's "sticky" appeal: "Books that are sneak peaked get more than 100 times the visits of books that don't have online previews," notes Stehlik. "It's a win-win situation. Fans get a taste of forthcoming novels before they hit shelves, and when readers are allowed to browse inside a book early, these page views are converting to the preview links being forwarded to a friend, and book pre-orders increase exponentially."

Consumer click-throughs of these "Browse Inside" previews will help Avon's Love Gives Back charity initiative (http://www.lovegivesback.com). From August 19, 2008 to December 23, 2008, Avon will donate books to ProLiteracy Worldwide (http://www.proliteracy.org), an organization that promotes literacy around the world. "We're urging people to 'CLICK, BROWSE, SHARE' -- to start reading and share the love," says Stehlik.

As part of Avon's focus on building a romance destination, the imprint is thrilled to be a part of Authors on Air (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/AuthorsOnAir/splash.aspx), an online radio station where Avon has launched the Romance Radio program. This new platform allows authors to directly connect with their fans and gives Avon the ability to bring authors together to discuss what's hot in romance right now.

Visitors should check into http://www.avonbooks.com on a regular basis to get advance access to a variety of promotional videos, host a hub of author sweepstakes, and showcase a sampling of current media coverage promoting Avon authors and the romance industry. The new website will link to the Avon blog (http://www.avonromanceblog.com).

To top it off, http://www.avonbooks.com provides a central location for readers to browse compelling author microsites. These content rich, multifaceted author pages enable authors to create and post new information, images, and links that will engage and entertain readers. All these pages will be centralized for fans into an exclusive, comprehensive and authoritative information hub about all their favorite authors ... and will help readers discover what fresh new voices to read next. "Readers are asking us to provide much more author content. Our proprietary Author Assistant platform, which Avon has piloted for HarperCollins, puts a free tool in the hands of authors to enable them to share more of themselves and their work with their fans," says Stehlik. "From search engine optimization to cross marketing, we're working for our authors, who can then focus on writing more of what their fans want."

I Thought You Were Perfect, But...

Harlequin Launches Interactive Web Site for 2009 Romance Report

Perfect love. We read about it in books and magazines, we see it on television and in movies, we hear about it at the water cooler at work and during dinner conversation with friends. Apparently, it's what we're all searching for, or are we? Harlequin Enterprises Limited is seeking answers to this question and many more. The world's leading publisher of women's fiction today launched its annual survey on its interactive Web

site, www.harlequinromancereport.com, which gives visitors a place to share

their experiences in their individual quests for love.

The Web site, featuring an anonymous online forum and interactive survey,

will form the basis of the Harlequin 2009 Romance Report: Perfect Love?, which

sets out to explore the dichotomy between fantasy and reality,
and will be

released in January 2009.

"Perfect Love? Is about our search for happiness and the many experiences

- both good and bad - that we have along the way," said Marleah Stout, Senior

Public Relations Manager, Harlequin Enterprises Limited. "Relationships are

not always easy to navigate and not all of them end in fairy tale romance.
But

all hope is not lost. In the pursuit of perfect love we often find what we are

looking for, and although it may not be perfect, it can be exactly what we

needed and the best thing that's ever happened to us."

Visitors to www.harlequinromancereport.com are encouraged to complete the

online survey, which closes September 26, 2008. By participating in the

survey, respondents can help shape the content of the Harlequin 2009 Romance

Report: Perfect Love? The site also features an interactive discussion forum

where visitors can anonymously share their experiences in love, romance and

relationships with other visitors without repercussion.

"Each year
readers and fans of the romance report ask for more tips and

advice from our romance experts, more romantic travel destinations, more

celebrity profiles and more insight into the world of romance," said Stout.

"The Web site is a great way to involve readers and fans in the process of

developing this year's Romance Report. Visitors to the site will be able to

share their knowledge and experience with others and will play a role in

helping us identify new romantic trends."

The Web site, also home to past editions of Harlequin's annual Romance

Report, will be updated frequently over the coming months and then relaunched

in January 2009 to celebrate the introduction of the hard-copy version of the

Harlequin 2009 Romance Report: Perfect Love?

To view new confessions, content and more, visit     www.harlequinromancereport.com regularly.

Mills and Boon turns from romance to crime

Crime is the new romance, according to Mills and Boon, the publisher which has made its money out of the happy ending.

by Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent

It has just launched a new brand of thrillers, murder mysteries and police novels that it hopes will replicate the success of its romance titles.

Like the slushy novels that sell more than six million copies every year in Britain alone, readers will be guaranteed a happy ending.

The new books, to be marketed under the imprint Black Star Crime, are unashamedly commercial.

They are limited to 256 pages and Black Star's editorial director Karin Stoecker said they could be read cover-to-cover in less than three hours.

She defended their literary integrity, saying: "The literary value of any book is in the enjoyment that the reader gets from the experience."

Harlequin Mills and Boon, to give the publishing house its full title, is up-front about wanting to ride the 'crime wave' which has seen sales of such fiction rise by 70 per cent since 2001.

The stakes are high. Romance titles account for just eight per cent of the UK adult fiction market. The crime/thriller market is three and a half times that size.

Mills and Boon thinks by mixing the grit of the crime story with the reassurance that "the bad guy is usually caught" it has come up with another winning formula.

Ms Stoecker said: "In turbulent times people like escapist reading, especially where good triumphs over evil."

The books are set to run in series, so that readers get to know the detectives, criminals and amateur detectives from novel to novel.

Following a 100-year-old tradition, Black Star has signed mainly unknown authors to its fold.

South African author Tracy Gilpin, whose debut novel Double Cross will be among Black Star's first batch, has secured a two-book deal with them.

She described her book, about a single mother who discovers her boss is a terrorist, as a "hard-boiled crime thriller.&#xu201D;

She said it was a "pity" that there was "a lot of snobbery" about Mills and Boons books.

"My book is quite hard-hitting," she said.

Tom Tivnan, from The Bookseller, said Mills and Boon was not moving into the crime market to compensate for flagging sales in romance.

"It's one of the most profitable publishers out there, if not the most profitable. The romance market is steadily growing."

Page to Screen: An Erotic Thriller and a YA Heavy
by Rachel Deahl
After a hiatus this summer Page to Screen, PW's roundup of news about books being sold (or about to be sold) in Hollywood, is back. This week an erotic thriller fetches a hefty sum and a YA heavy grabs studio attention.

Roberta Brown, of Brown Literary Agency, has sold film rights to a 2009-slated erotic thriller by Jo Davis called When Alex Was Bad. Producer Cathy Schulman, whose credits include Paul Haggis' Best Picture-winner Crash and the indie Thumbsucker, optioned the book for high six figures; IPG's Joel Gotler was the co-agent. The book, which NAL is publishing, follows a wife who, in an attempt to save her marriage, allows her husband to live out a series of sexual fantasies with other women. A murder plot ensues.

Don Laventhall of Harold Ober is about to start shopping film rights to Lowis Lowry's latest YA novel, The Birthday Ball. Laventhall has been busy with the two-time Newbery winner; last year he sold her 1993-published Newbery winning novel The Giver to Warner Brothers for seven figures and he just recently wrapped up a deal for film rights on her February-published book, The Willoughbys. Lowry's other Newbery winner, Number the Stars, is also under option.

Rowling Wins over RDR, but Judge's Ruling Is Mixed

Judge Robert Patterson agreed that author JK Rowling would face irreparable harm from RDR Books' proposed publication of the HARRY POTTER LEXICON and ruled in her favor in the copyright infringement suit brought by Rowling and Warner Bros. Patterson said the publisher "had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use" and issued a permanent injunction against publication--but since the book had not been issued yet, he awarded minimum statutory damages of $6,750.

In the full opinion, Patterson walks a fine line through the nuanced arguments made in the case. He acknowledges that "reference works that share the Lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled" and speaks of "striking the balance between the property rights of original authors and the freedom of expression of secondary authors... but to borrow from Rowling's overstated views, they should not be permitted to 'plunder' the works of original authors."

In the end, it was author Steve Vander Ark's "haste and laziness as Rowling suggested in composing the Lexicon entries" or his "lack of restraint due to an enthusiastic admiration of Rowling's artistic expression" that did him in--in particular with the two minor companion Potter books Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages, where "the information contained in these short works has been incorporated into the Lexicon almost wholesale." It's clear that if these short books had been left aside, the judge's decision would have been far closer.

But throughout the Lexicon the judge found "verbatim copying and close paraphrasing of language from the Harry Potter works. In many instances, the copied language is a colorful literary device or distinctive description... The Lexicon's verbatim copying of such highly aesthetic expression raises a significant question as to whether it was reasonably necessary for the purpose of creating a useful and complete reference guide."

Despite finding for Rowling, Judge Patterson does not accept all of her arguments. He notes that "there is no plausible basis to conclude that publication of the Lexicon would impair sales of the Harry Potter novels." And he makes it clear that a lexicon that does not borrow so heavily from Rowling's own words could easily exist in the marketplace and would qualify under fair use law as a "transformative" work: "Competing with Rowling's planned encyclopedia is therefore permissible. Notwithstanding Rowling's public statements of her intention to publish her own encyclopedia, the market for reference guides to the Harry Potter works is not exclusively hers to exploit or license, no matter the commercial success attributable to the popularity of the original works." Elsewhere, Judge Patterson acknowledges the Lexicon has a "legitimate purpose of creating a reference guide.... To the extent that Defendant seeks to provide a useful reference guide to the Harry Potter novels that benefits the public, the use is fair, and its commercial nature only weighs slightly against a finding of fair use."

Shortly after the ruling was announced, Rowling issued this statement: "I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably. I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right.

"The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published. Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them."

Triumphant as Rowling may be, her statement miscontrues the court's finding. Judge Patterson did not rule that a lexicon would need to provide "original insights" or "original commentary"--only that such a book cannot copy so directly Rowling's own words and descriptions. As Patterson writes: "The purpose of the Lexicon's use of the Harry Potter series is transformative. Presumably, Rowling created the Harry Potter series for the expressive purpose of telling an entertaining and thought provoking story centered on the character Harry Potter and set in a magical world. The Lexicon, on the other hand, uses material from the series for the practical purpose of making information about the intricate world of Harry Potter readily accessible to readers in a reference guide."

For its part, RDR Books answered with this statement: "We are encouraged by the fact the court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works. As for the Lexicon, we are obviously disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options."

New Adobe Software Protects ePub Files

Adobe announced their Content Server 4 for release on September 22, "a new server software solution that copy protects downloadable eBooks for Adobe Digital Editions" in pdf and ePub formats. Developed "in concert with" over 30 publishing-related partners, the new software "improves file security and flexible permissions, as well as retail and library lending support." The ePub support is billed in particular as allowing publishers to "securely distribute reflowable digital content to the smaller screens of mobile devices."
Press release

Since They Aren't Selling, Let's Give Them Away

"Creative director of the struggling TOW Books" John Warner writes on Maud Newton's blog about his new initiative to give away PDFs of four books from his humor imprint to help spread the word. "The sad fact, and I'm afraid that it is a fact, is that the reason we're struggling is because very few people even know our books exist.... After two years of, let's call it, non-success, I understand that the problem is at least as much about publicity and distribution as it is about quality. (At least I hope that's the problem.) So I'm here to announce that if TOW Books is going to fail at publishing, we are going to fail in our own spectacularly new way."

Copies of Warner's own So You Want to Be President? Find Out If You Have the Ego, Bankroll, and Moral Flexibility to Lead the Nation and Take on the World plus these three titles:
 
Really, You've Done Enough: A Parents' Guide to Stop Parenting Their Adult Child Who Still Needs Their Money But Not Their Advice
by Sarah Walker

Oh, the Humanity! A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert
by Jason Roeder

Everything Is Wrong With You: The Modern Woman's Guide to Finding Self-Confidence Through Self-Loathing
by Wendy Molyneux

are available.

Everyone Loves the Underdog (We're countin' on it...)

Raging rapids aren't the only thing causing turbulence in the lives of a river rafting guide and an undercover FBI agent ... catching criminals is as dangerous as the undercurrent of attraction they have for each other.

Underdog Press is pre-selling Robin Miller w/a Robin Caroll's debut single title inspirational romantic suspense, Torrents of Destruction, available in trade paperback and scheduled for a mid-November release. (Note: Was scheduled for an October release, but we're trying to get a package deal from the printer. Sigh.)

Torrents earns an "E" rating. (Like a PG movie. Learn more about our rating system at www.underdogpress.com). We have an exciting video trailer (thanks to the efforts of the maaavelous Natalie Eggeman) for Torrents that takes just over a minute to view (I know y'all have short attention spans). Visit our secure site at: www.underdogpress.com to view the trailer and reserve your copy. Visit Robin at: www.robincaroll.com.

AND:

 "Do you know how to make the gods laugh, Ceana? Tell them of your plans."

Underdog's second release, Celtic Sacrifice by Sheryl Brennan is on the site and the video trailer is waitin' for ya (thanks to the efforts of the D-lightful Dee Owens), so hop on over to watch it, then pre-order. This book is rated "A" for "Adults." (No, that doesn't mean like rated "X," but like rated "R.") Celtic Sacrifice will be in available in trade paperback, scheduled for a late November release. To buy your copy, visit our secure site: www.underdogpress.com

UNDERDOG PRESS needs your support to publish great work that needs a home. Please visit us at www.underdogpress.com and pre-order Torrents of Destruction and Celtic Sacrifice in Trade Paperback today ... this minute ... NOW!, even if ya don't know how to read. (A lame excuse, as you're reading this newsletter. Duh!)