Avon Unveils New Site
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 8/22/2008 7:30:00 AM
Avon Books has relaunched its Web site, www.avonbooks.com. The new site features previews of forthcoming novels, full access to backlist titles, author microsites, "beyond the book" content, original videos, author essays, sweepstakes and book tour information. There is also a direct click-thru to Romance Radio, a new BlogTalkRadio.com station hosted by Avon Books.
The site showcases HarperCollins’s “Browse Inside” feature, which enables readers to read select chapters of new and backlist books online. As part of Avon’s Love Gives Back campaign, readers will be able to preview the opening chapter of the season’s Avon romances two weeks before they are in stores (for other Harper books, "Browse Inside" is only available once the book goes on sale). A number of Avon authors’ favorite backlist books will be available online in their entirety, free, for a month, throughout the summer and fall. As readers view the pages of the new advance preview books, Avon will track these visits and donate books to ProLiteracy Worldwide, a nonprofit international organization that sponsors educational programs that help adults and their families acquire literacy practices and skills. There will be approximately 25 frontlist and 10 backlist titles available over the next few months.
Liate Stehlik, senior v-p and publisher of Avon Books, said, “Online interactivity is the future of the romance genre—and romance readers are among the most tech-savvy of all consumers; we’ve created Avon’s new web presence specifically to enable readers to get a more integrated experience of author, book and community.” Stehlik said books that are “sneak peaked” get more than 100 times the visits of books that don’t have online previews.
