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Avon plans thrilling growth

03.07.08

HarperCollins' mass market imprint Avon will increase its publishing output by almost 20% over the next year, placing a greater focus on crime and thriller titles.

The publisher will raise the number of titles it publishes yearly to 42, up from 36, beginning this month (July). Since it entered the UK market last July, Avon has published one commercial fiction, one crime and thriller, and one contemporary romance novel per month.

The majority of the new titles will be crime and thriller novels, which editorial director Maxine Hitchcock said followed "the fantastic success" Avon has already had in the genre. "We feel there is room to grow further in this area," she said.

The increase in output kicks off this month with Alison Kervin's WAGS Abroad as the "extra" title. Hitchcock said she brought forward publication of the book to coincide with Avon title The WAG's Diary being given away free with this month's issue of Glamour magazine.

She added that while the majority of the extra titles would be crime or thriller, there would also be additional releases in other genres; in October, Avon will publish the memoir Undercover: The Real Adventures of a Gigolo by Luke Bradbury.

Avon has also acquired three new authors to further its push into crime, including former James Patterson co-writer Peter de Jonge's untitled début novel, which will be published in April 2009. Dagger Award nominee Laura Lippman's next novel Life Sentences will also be published in spring 2009, after UK and Commonwealth rights were bought from Kate Walker and Arabella Stein at the Abner Stein agency.

In another deal with Abner Stein, Hitchcock acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to three books by Alafair Burke, the daughter of James Lee Burke. The first book will be published in February.

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