Pocket Books and Grand Central Publishing Spotlights at RWA 2010

Back in July I attended the RWA National Conference in Orlando Florida. While there, I sat in on some of the Publisher Spotlight sessions. Since I haven’t seen anyone else in my corner of the blogosphere reporting on the spotlights for Pocket or Grand Central, I dug up my notes to share. Here goes…

Grand Central

Grand Central is the romance group at Hachette Book Group (formerly Warner Forever). Editor Amy Pierpont announced that that they are expanding to four titles a month and heavily promoting their new authors. Look for special pricing for debuts!  

They also announced that they would be continuing Sherrilyn Kenyon’s League series. Good news there!

For authors, they accept only agented submissions, but they are eager for submissions in all subgenres of romance. They are also publishing Scifi and Urban Fantasy through Orbit Books.  

Pocket Books

Pocket editors Lauren McKenna and Abby Zidle talked about Pocket’s romance publishing program. They reported that paranormal romance and kick-ass urban fantasy are alive and well. They pointed to big success with authors Kresley Cole, Cherry Adair, Alexis Morgan, and announced a new series planned for Sherrillyn Kenyon.

The editors also mentioned a continuing interest in historical romance, but warned they are not interested in Westerns and medievals must be a cut above to be considered for Pocket’s line-up.

Contemporaries at Pocket are moving toward small town, family oriented stories but they continue to publish a few in their ‘love and laughter’ line.

For authors thinking of submitting, Abby mentioned she is not a fan of shape shifters and Lauren confessed she is no fan of dragons. Vamps, it appears, have become a mainstay and they are still looking for vamp books from amazing new voices.

Pocket only accepts agented submissions and they think the best way for new authors to break in is with truly remarkable writing that is smart, engaging, and unputdownable.  Upon hearing this news, all the authors in the room stepped right up to claim their spot on the Pocket list.

So, in short, readers should look for Pocket Books to knock their socks off in the next few years.

6 thoughts on “Pocket Books and Grand Central Publishing Spotlights at RWA 2010”

  1. So you’re saying vampires aren’t dead?

    …and how much more mileage can we get out of that joke?

    I write love and laughter! And most of it takes place in a small town! Does that count? So what if I don’t have an agent. 🙂

  2. Either find an agent or enter contests where these editors judge. They didn’t even leave the door open for queries. However… St. Martin’s Press and Avon both accept queries. I think you’d make a great Avon author!

  3. Thanks very much for the info, Charlie. I was also at the Pocket talk, and they promoted the ‘Pocket After Dark’ on-line community website. It looked interesting, but I’m new to the blog-a-sphere. How does it measure up to other sites?

    • It was still new and buggy when I checked it out, but it seemed to have promise. Looked like they would have some free reads from the backlist (wasn’t working when I went).

      Avon has had a good website and blog for romance for a long while now. Editors answer questions on Fridays. They also do a podcast called Romance Radio that I subscribe to(via iTunes)—author interviews mostly.

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