HC Goes Digital With Catalogues

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 3/23/2009 7:47:00 AM

Although questions still remain about the viability of digital galleys, at least one major house is going paperless with its catalogues. HarperCollins will be dropping the traditional bound catalogues for fall 2009 in lieu of a digital alternative that will feature a handful of PR-like bells and whistles, as well as various search capabilities.

HC's digital catalogues, housed at www.harpercollinscatalogs.com, will, in addition to featuring the standard information in print catalogues, include reviews, interviews and promotional videos. The publisher is also promising that the online catalogues will be updated frequently, reflecting any evolving changes with the publication details or marketing efforts surrounding titles. The digital catalogues will also feature access to authors' backlists and, on select titles, link to browsable galleys. The search functionality will allow users to create lists of titles based on categories like genre, format and on-sale date. A pdf version of the catalogue will also be available, for those who want to print it out, but HC will not mail any print catalogues.

Josh Marwell, president of sales at HC, said the new online catalogues mark the "next step in the evolution of how we bring our books to market."