Random House launches digital-first teen romance imprint

Random House has launched a digital-first romance imprint for teen readers and is currently inviting submissions.

Called Hooked, the imprint will publish stories for readers aged 15-plus that are ‘full of romance, love, lust, tension, suspense and fantastic characters’, said the publisher in a statement.

Submissions of 60,000-80,000 words are due by the end of April, and successful authors will work with senior editors at Random House ‘with the aim of publishing [their] story digitally in 2013 or 2014’. Authors will receive a ‘standard royalty’.

Associate publisher Jeanmarie Morosin, who is overseeing the imprint, said Hooked will be different from other YA titles published by Random House because ‘it will be, at least initially, a purely digital imprint’, and it will be ‘absolutely romance-driven’.

Morosin said the decision to the launch the imprint was motivated by both a demand for YA romance and the ‘huge wealth of young writing talent we were noticing in the online world on blogs, forums and self-published sites’. ‘We want to create an imprint that houses and harnesses this talent, and which satisfies the huge appetite out there for really good YA romance stories,’ she said.

Morosin said the price point for the titles was still being finalised, but that the publisher is ‘hoping to keep it below $5.99—and definitely no more than $9.99’.

Staffed by Morosin, a project editor and a senior editor, the imprint will continue to open for submissions at various intervals throughout the year, with the number of books published determined by ‘the number and quality of submissions’.

Hooked ebooks, which will contain DRM, will be made available to all eretailers, and Morosin said the publisher will also consider doing print editions for ‘standout titles after they have proven themselves in the digital platform’.

For more information on Hooked, including submissions guidelines, see the website here.

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