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Little, Brown imprint Atom is venturing beyond the supernatural and into the mainstream as it expands its Young Adults (YA) list.
The imprint has already increased its output, from 16 to 25 titles this year alone, but this has been firmly in Atom's territory of vampires and werewolves. The new standalone list—having been separated from sci-fi and fantasy imprint Orbit last year—kicks off this spring with the launch of the Blue Blood series by Melissa de la Cruz, described by Little, Brown as "Gossip Girl" meets Twilight. Other key titles include books from P C and Kristin Cast, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Kelly Armstrong and Andrea Cremer.
Editor Sam Smith said she was now "actively looking" for books to broaden its reach for 2011. "We are really expanding our publishing programme," Smith said. "A lot of it is about where the market is right now—there are a lot of really wonderful authors writing about the supernatural. We haven't bought anything on the mainstream side yet, but we are keen to get up and running in that area, we are actively looking right now."
The publisher's output is likely to "grow at a similar rate" to this year, Smith said, adding it would be "all very organic". She explained: "It's very hard to put finite numbers on it, but we are certainly looking to grow—we are definitely open to different types of authors and publishing. Our only focus is that we are still looking very much towards YA, those older readers. It's great because there is a lot of enthusiasm behind it."
The team has already expanded to create an additional editorial assistant role, but Smith said more expansion could be possible "further down the line".
Smith acknowledged concerns about saturation of the YA supernatural market, saying Atom's editors had to be "very careful about what we acquire". She added: "It's all about the writing—I would hate to have to say I can't take a wonderful book because we've reached our quota."