A Case Study of Harlequin Publishing

authors are taking up a huge portion of the market and therefore more beneficial for

On an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Winfrey shares with her viewers “What a difference it makes in your world to go into some other life. It’s what I love most. I’m reading always to leave myself…behind” “That’s what reading is. You get to leave.” and in 1996, carrying this passion of hers, she began a self-titled book club to share the joy of literature with the public. Oprah’s Book Club was a huge hit from the start of the segment and over twenty million viewers were a part of this phenomenon. This increase in book popularity also had an immense increase on publishing companies. With the swift change brought by the book club, this was the largest change to benefit publishing companies in more than

Some might claim the YA genre has grown to be too dark for its target audience. Meghan Gurdon, a firm believer of this idea, explains why she believes this in her article, “Darkness Too Visible”. Gurdon describes the experience of a mother of three in a bookstore looking to purchase a YA novel for one of her children, when she found herself leaving the bookstore empty-handed due to the content of the teen books. While teen books decades ago contained less violent/corrupted material, times have changed along with the genre. She is concerned that these books could have an effect on these young readers’ brains as they are merely transferring from childhood to adulthood. Gurdon still has faith that YA books would sell just as well and connect with young readers today without all of the dark subject matters discussed in them these days.

Lisa Nakamura argues in her article, “Words with Friends”: Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads, that Goodreads is a successful Web 2.0 business, worth studying by literary scholars. By applying the argument Carolyn Miller makes for a successful genre, in her text, Genre as Social Action (1984), Revisited 30 Years Later (2014), one can examine why Goodreads is successful in terms of fulfilling its requirements to its public. Miller defines genre as being “a multidimensional construct”, that is a “typified rhetorical response to” an uptake of a situation, “a ‘macro’ speech act”, “a mediation between private intentions (purpose) and socially objectified needs (exigence)”, and above all she emphasizes that genre must create social action,

All this has added to the growing popularity of the Harry Potter brand that is everywhere today. Young readers can relate to Harry’s issues and the books create another world the readers can subconsciously ‘escape’ too.

When we think of romance novels, one's first thought might be of the kind we see at the newsstand while waiting to check out at the grocery store. Visions of a white knight like Fabio whisking away the fair damsel in distress. Romance novels for the young adult are appealing because many romantic symbols relate directly to what they're experiencing both physically and emotionally in their lives; that of youthfulness and hope.

Rabury’s prophecy about society and books today is correct that most people honestly don’t check out or buy a book and read it anymore. The world is so focused on social media including; facebook, twitter, and instagram that they don’t use their free time to read, but to tweet or update their status. Technology has gotten more interesting, and even when some people to read, they can find the book online.

Anytime she reads an innovative book, she wants everybody else to experience the same story she adored. As a result, she is always lending out her books to her friends. Anyone who needs a dystopian or romantic book could probably find it at her house; she is identical to a miniature library. Many people her age despise reading because they think it is just uninteresting, or extra work. Hannah’s acts of sharing her books have turned people from book haters to avid readers.

McSweeney 's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by editor Dave Eggers in 1998, based in San Francisco. McSweeney 's initially published only the literary journal Timothy McSweeney 's Quarterly Concern, a literary magazine that only published work rejected elsewhere. It has since grown to include four print literary magazines (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Wholfin, Lucky Peach, & The Believer), a web humor magazine (MsSweeney’s Internet Tendency), a scholarship program (Scholarmatch), two human rights organizations (Voice of Witness & the VAD Foundation), and a national tutoring center (826 National). As with the rest of the McSweeney’s body of work, they are beautiful in content and form, emphasising original writing and impeccable design alike.

Humans have always loved stories, from magical ones filled with wonders, to the everyday life reciting’s. Humans crave stories; they crave the moment of going to a magical land of wonders that exceed their own lives. Such is the case with books. Books hold the magic of binding a story and making it immortal. Creating a world that shall never be forgotten, whilst always adding new members. Unfortunately not all see books as a valuable relic. Most people nowadays do not even deem books as worthy of their time at any given moment. Nevertheless, some books do have the power to make even books haters yearn for more and are read even centuries after they were first published. The article ”How Harry Saved Reading” written by Norman Lebrecht in 2011 dives into the subject of how J.K.Rowling managed to make

One key trend Rob Salkowitz discusses in “The Future of Reading: 10 Trends for 2014 and Beyond” which will likely continue to develop is the concept of the “never-ending story.” All aspects of our life are becoming more and more connected through technology such as social media: from digital banking to weather and traffic advisories, cell phone applications, particularly Facebook, can encompass all tasks. In order for book publishers to stay relevant, especially with the millennials and youth demographic, I would expect them to attempt to bridge the gap between online entertainment and reading fiction. Books have already turned into movies, and recently television shows such as “Riverdale” and “13 Reasons Why.” Just as Salkowitz describes using Google Glass’ potential ability “to overlay, hyperlink, and

Harlequin Enterprises has dominated the series romance fiction novel market since the 1970’s. Harlequin has fought off every major competitor in this genre and maintained consistent performance for multiple decades. Brand loyalty, worldwide production capabilities, production efficiencies, creative control, and distribution are the strengths that Harlequin utilizes to dominate the series romance genre.

worlds of which readers desire to be a part. Most North-American homes are blessed with one

Using imagination and creativity, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has defined literature as transformative. In this seven-book series J.K Rowling imagined and creatively pieced together a fantasy world of muggles, wizards, tyrants, and heroes to symbolically share with readers problems plaguing modern society. Similar to Shelley’s work of the past, never before have readers in the modern era seen teenage and adult mania surrounding an 11-year-old wizard. Some will argue that J.K. Rowling’s young-adult series lacks depth or wants to twist young minds by using magic and evil, but through close examination it is evident that

One of the significant drawbacks of e-books is the issue of compatibility. Various researchers argue that most e-books are not compatible with a variety of software. For instance, a book may be readable on a Kindle device and fail to display its contents in a different device due to compatibility issues. This makes it hard for readers to access all books. It also poses a challenge for readers as all software require a constant update. This is also a major inconvenience for readers as the books they purchase an older version of the software may become obsolete over time, and thus, require them to make a new purchase (Lai and Li 458). Notably, as much as the issue of compatibility describes the disadvantage of using an e-book, it presents a benefit of using the traditional books. This is because the reader will never encounter compatibility issues upon purchasing a hard copy book. Such a book can last for a long