You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Little, Brown imprint Orbit is hoping to attract a mainstream adult audience for urban fantasy series Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong, with a new look aimed at positioning her alongside Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris.
This May sees the relaunch of her first two books and the 10th in the Otherworld series—Bitten, Stolen and Frostbitten, which are connected by the recurring character Elena the werewolf—in their new look, as B-format paperbacks priced £7.99. Later this year the third and fourth titles will be released, with the remaining likely to come out next year, depending on stock depletion.
Antonia Hodgson, Little, Brown editor-in-chief of the commercial division, said it had been decided to change the design for a number of reasons.
“It needed refreshing—we’d had the same cover for about seven or eight years—but also we had got to the point where she was the bestselling urban fantasy author in the UK, and there is a ceiling in that market. We have always felt that she should appeal to a really broad market, and that though the previous covers worked well, there was an opportunity to broaden her market.”
Hodgson, who acquired Armstrong’s first book in 1999, added: “The market has caught up with her a bit, I think. And the retail opportunities are taking off because retailers are looking at how to boost her sales, which have always been very good, within a genre that is a bit more mature, or developed.”
Retail feedback has been positive so far, and a second print run is on the cards to top up the 10,000–20,000 per title that have already been produced, Hodgson added. Although the titles are all part of the same series, Hodgson described it as similar to a soap opera, in that some characters recur in some books, but not all, and each works on a standalone basis.
Next year, Armstrong’s young adult series, Darkest Powers, will also be getting a facelift.