Penguin Australia launches digital-first romance imprint

By | 16 August 2012 | 7 Responses

Destiny Romance is the newly announced digital-first romance imprint by Penguin Australia.

It seems Australian publishers are finally taking note, with Penguin announcing its newest imprint, Destiny Romance. The imprint has launched with four titles by Jennifer St George, Elise K. Ackers, Peta Crake and Kelly Hunter, with plans to publish two new titles each month.

The Convenient Bride by Jennifer St GeorgeSmall Town Storm by Elise K. AckersHarbinger by Peta CrakeWish by Kelly Hunter

The Hunter title seems to have been previously self-published, and the Ackers and Crake titles are new. Update: I had a quick look at the buy links—Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and Kobo. Looks like Penguin will be enforcing DRM. Not sure yet if they’re making the books available internationally or just within Australia.

I’ll add links and cover images a little later, as the site seems to have collapsed—hopefully from reader enthusiasm! In the meantime, you can read more about the imprint at Bookseller+Publisher:

Penguin said the imprint, which has launched with four titles, will publish ‘romance ebooks of all kinds, from novellas to full-length stories’ and will focus on the romance genres of contemporary, historical, suspense, paranormal, fantasy, sci-fi and erotica. The publisher said the Destiny Romance imprint ‘will have a strong emphasis on discovering new Australian voices’…

The imprint will be headed up by editor Carol George and commissioning editor Sarah Fairhall…

Destiny Romance ebooks are available from a range of retailers including Kobo, ReadCloud, Google, Amazon and Apple, and will soon be available for purchase from the Destiny Romance website.

…priced between $3.99 and $5.99.

This announcement doesn’t surprise me. I suspected that Penguin had something up its sleeves when I learned that they signed on Helene Young, who was previously with Hachette, and after noticing their presence at the ARRA Awards and their silver sponsor status at the Romance Writers of Australia conference.

It’s going to be an exciting time for romance readers.

(I have another major romance-related news item coming soon. Watch this space!)

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Kat

Killer of Fairies
Kat Mayo is a freelance writer, Twitter tragic and compulsive reader. She is the editor of Booktopia's Romance Buzz and hosts the Heart to Heart podcast for Destiny Romance. Her reviews have appeared in Books+Publishing, and in 2014 she was awarded RWA's Romance Media Award. Kat firmly believes in happy endings. She kills fairies with glee.

7 comments »

  1. Anna Cowan

    I was at the Penguin offices earlier this year talking to one of the editors about working as an editor. When she found out I write romance she got Sarah Fairhall to come and join in the chat, and Sarah told me a bit about the imprint. It’s definitely a move in the right direction! Sarah was so excited to meet me, because she said she’d been trying to convince marketing that young romance readers existed, and they wouldn’t believe her :-). That price-point sounds good, too. 

  2. Kat (author)

    I’m looking forward to seeing what kinds of romances they’ll be publishing! I wonder if we’ll see some historical romances set in Australia…

  3. Marg

    It would be great to see some historical romances set in Australia!

  4. Kelly Hunter

    I was hoping for DRM free too, but alas. 

    Destiny will shift to worldwide simultaneous english-market release very soon (a couple of last minute glitches)  – possibly before the next drop of books.  

    I love the way publishing is opening up to Australian settings and Aus author voices. Definitely exciting times.

  5. Jane

    I tried to purchase the Kelly Hunter book but Amazon US does not have it available.  Any details on worldwide availability?

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