So now we can zero in on Tim’s Star Wars fans and make sure they know there’s much more available from their favorite Star Wars author. Yet his Star Wars fans were barely aware of the older works-in which they would find the same adventurous plots and likable characters as in the Star Wars titles. Timothy Zahn wrote a number of fine SF novels before he became a #1 New York Times bestselling author for his Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire.Dick Award-winning novel King of Morning, Queen of Day and other early work to be resurrected. His most recent novels have been award-winning and highly praised. ![]() For years Ian McDonald, who lives in Belfast, has been using science fiction to examine the ways in which different types of people within a single country prey on each other, and trying to imagine a future that brings such conflicts to an end.Her earliest titles were out of print, but they would appeal to her new readers, and so we brought back Reclamation, Playing God, Fool’s War and The Quiet Invasion and have been reaching out to female readers to promote them. She’s always written very strong, proactive female characters. Sarah Zettel has been doing quite well with her YA series, the American Fairy trilogy.Theodore Sturgeon, Jonathan Carroll, Tim Powers all had books in print but not in e.Īnd beyond that, I look for authors who started out at a time when they were ahead of the curve in terms of what they were writing, or have gained a whole new reputation for their more recent work since the earlier books went out of print. That shows, of course, that there are readers who are supporting them in the print format and presumably will be happy to see them in digital as well. Then I do some basic detective work in search of authors whose books are still in print but don’t have digital editions. So quality of the work comes first, which has led to acquiring SF and fantasy by such writers as Jane Yolen, Elizabeth Hand, Robert Silverberg, Ian McDonald and others. As a first acquisition, I couldn’t have imagined anyone better! It can be difficult to market an author to all of the diverse readers who might enjoy him or her, but that’s one of the things Open Road can do more easily than a traditional publisher, where you basically have to pick a core audience and go for it. Octavia, who’s won numerous awards and was given a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” is an author who is continually being discovered by new fans, and she’s also a writer who appeals to three distinct readerships: science fiction, feminist, and literary. The first author I signed for Open Road was Octavia Butler, with whom I worked during the time she was writing Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Open Road has an extensive ebook collection of backlist speculative fiction titles – can you tell us a bit about the selection process for your SFF ebooks? How do you decide which books to bring back? Are there certain themes or types of stories you look for in your decision?īETSY MITCHELL: Foremost is the quality of the writing. It has become one of our most popular features and as such we are always looking to add different, older titles to our TBR (To Be Read) list. THE BOOK SMUGGLERS: We recently started a new feature called Old School Wednesdays, in which we read and review older, classic, backlist titles. ![]() In the spirit of Old School Wednesdays, today we are talking to Open Road science fiction and fantasy editor Betsy Mitchell about some fabulous older SFF titles that Open Road (e-)publishes from luminaries of the genre. More interesting to us here at The Book Smugglers, though, is Open Road’s roster of digital science fiction and fantasy – including works from authors such as Jane Yolen, Octavia Butler and Kate Elliott. Open Road has published ebooks from authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, Jack Higgins, and Virginia Hamilton, and has launched new e-stars like Mary Glickman. Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company that creates connections between authors and their audiences. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Open Road Media as our spotlighted progressive publisher doing cool things. There are plenty of new publishers working to increase literacy, raise money for charities across the globe, and who are redefining our concept of reading and of the book itself. Learn, Grow, Improve: Progressive Publishers Doing Cool Things is a monthly feature at The Book Smugglers, in which we spotlight new ventures, content creators and publishers that are doing awesome things – awesome, defined as something smart, admirable, and most importantly, progressive.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |