Harlequin Enters the Self-Publishing World

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Harlequin, the romance publisher famous for starting the careers of such household names as Nora Roberts and Tess Gerritsen, has teamed up with Author Solutions to create a self-publishing imprint. Harlequin Horizons, the new author subsidized imprint is one of the first in what could be a trend of major publishing houses seeking alternative methods for turning a profit. These new imprints would offer print on demand printing, typesetting, jacket design and basic levels of editing for a fee.

While I’m sure there are many authors who will jump at the chance of having their books printed with an imprint that is closely related to a major publishing house, there are both advantages and disadvantages to going the self-publishing route. The success stories of self-published authors may push many aspiring novelists to take this route, however, it is a very difficult and time-consuming journey. It is a journey that needs to be planned out fully and properly executed in order to give yourself a chance at mainstream potential (hiring an editor for a thorough, complex editing of manuscript, a publicist to help in media placement and review coverage, and acquiring distribution).

We will have to wait and see if more publishing houses follow suit and what kind of attention this results in for the writers involved.

One thought on “Harlequin Enters the Self-Publishing World

  1. Author Solutions published 13,000 titles last year. Titles that vary in content and quality. Titles that perhaps didn’t quite fit a publisher’s existing lines. Those books already exist, but are the readers buying them?

    And if not, why? (IMHO they aren’t. 2,500,000 copies were sold of 13,000 titles. That first number sounds impressive, right? But divide that down to the average number of copies sold per title = 192. Depressing.)

    Those books I spoke of are no different than the products readers will receive through Harlequin Horizons. Because these are Author Solutions products, not Harlequin products. Products designed to lure in writers, not readers. (13,000 packages sold to writers at a BASE price of $599 multiplies out to $7,887,000. Cha-ching )