Random Houses Teams with BookGlutton for Promotion

-- Publishers Weekly, 6/30/2009 9:04:00 AM

In an effort to take advantage of the growing number of online book clubs, the Random House Publishing Group has joined forces with the social reading platform BookGlutton in an online promotion of Sarah Dunant’s forthcoming novel Sacred Hearts which will be released July 14. Starting yesterday and running through August, RH will make the first four chapters of Sacred Hearts available to BookGlutton.com users. Avideh Bashirrad, director of marketing for the Random House imprint, said the company chose to go with BookGlutton because of the ability it has to allow users to read the same book simultaneously and share the experience by making notes online, chapter by chapter. Through BookGlutton, readers can also chat in real time with Dunant. “We are looking to cater to online book groups, and we think BookGlutton helps us do that,” Bashirrad said.

RH is lining up other titles to put on BookGlutton. Set for August is No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard, which Bashirrad expects to be a book club favorite.