Samhain Got Game

So first Kate alerts me to this cool contest over at Samhain, and then I read in Dear Author that Samhain has partnered with Kensington for a print line. Congrats to Samhain. It sounds like a great deal them and an even better deal for Kensington.

With heroes that have morphed from rapacious asshats to billionaire sheikhs to brooding vampires/werecods to Navy Seals and heroines that have gone from TSTL, to feisty, to kick-ass and back again - it's no secret that the Romance genre is prone to trends. Print publishing, by virtue of the time and money it takes to print and distribute books, is always a little behind the curve. Epublishers, on the other hand, can not only bring their product to market faster, they have real time information about what's selling and what isn't. Epublishers also seem more willing to take chances on new authors, many of whom go on to successful careers in print.

Print publishers that partner with ePublishers or - as I'm sure will soon be the case - create their own ePub imprints will be able to develop new writing talent and track genre trends faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently than their print-only rivals. I've no doubt that epublishing will play a big role in romance fiction's future.