Moving On Up: Staking Out a Trend

By Shannon Maughan, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 2/28/2008

Just like vampires themselves, the trend toward publishing books about them never seems to die. A recent case in point is the resurgent YA paperback series The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. According to Elise Howard, senior v-p and associate publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, the four-volume series, first published in 1991, has had a fairly long shelf life. “The books were beloved then,” Howard says. “Anecdotes we got back from booksellers told us that the titles were being merchandised in both teen and adult sections. They remained in print and sold modestly.” This successful run during the 1990s included a revamping of the book’s covers in 1999 along with a combined new printing of 100,000 copies.

But, with vamps more in vogue than ever these days, the time was right for another Diaries facelift. “The market has changed significantly and the rack format is not particularly robust right now,” Howard notes. “We freshened up the books in a trade paper format and came up with a package that is arresting but that doesn’t necessarily look like other vampire books out there.” The latest incarnation has transformed the original four books into two, packaging two of the original novels per volume—a move that’s in step with another trend: that of hefty YA page counts. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle hit shelves last June and The Vampire Diaries: The Fury and Dark Reunion followed in December. To date the two volumes have 200,000 copies in print.

“Vampires are slightly dangerous, slightly otherworldly, but they still have essentially human traits, which make them ‘appropriate’ love interests,” says Howard of the archetype’s long-lived popularity. “The ‘forbidden love’ story is always appealing,” she adds. “It’s the nature of what’s forbidden that changes. The Vampire Diaries have held up over time because they are well-written, kind of sexy and really romantic.”

Though the Vampire Diaries and another HarperCollins vampire-romance series, Vampire Kisses (aimed at a slightly younger audience), are already on readers’ radar, the house is actively “creating a variety of vampire books to appeal to readers of different kinds,” according to Howard. Middle graders have embraced lighter fare like the My Sister the Vampire series by Sienna Mercer, while a summer 2008 YA hardcover, Evernight by Claudia Gray, is about a vampire hunter and star-crossed love. Also arriving this summer is the paperback original Vamps by Nancy Collins, which Howard pegged as “Gossip Girl meets Anne Rice.”

Now that’s a lineup that booksellers and readers can sink their teeth into.

The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith. HarperTeen, $8.99 paper, 978-0-06-114097-6 12-up

The Vampire Diaries: The Fury and Dark Reunion by L.J. Smith. HarperTeen, $8.99 paper, 978-0-06-114098-3 12-up

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