Grand Central to Launch Digital Imprint

Grand Central will launch a digital romance imprint in February called Forever Yours, which will publish new works as well as backlist titles from its nine-year-old Forever imprint. Forever Yours will do two to four e-book titles a month. The imprint will accept submissions from both agented and unagented authors and publish short-form novellas as well as longer novels. Prices will start at 99 cents.

Sourcebooks Has Record Year

Sourcebooks saw its total revenue increase 19% in 2011, making it the best year in its history. Growth was driven by sales of e-books plus sales to gift stores and mass merchants. While print book sales rose slightly, e-book growth skyrocketed 795% and now accounts for 28% of Sourcebooks’ total revenue. Even after Christmas, the decline in print books “looks modest” for the company, with e-book sales continuing to be strong, up 138% in the week ending January 1, 2012.

SOPA/PIPA Lose Steam After Massive Protest

After what’s being called “the largest online protest in Internet history” and a threat from the White House to veto the bills in their current form, legislators are withdrawing their support for the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). Neither bill is expected to move forward until they are amended.

Coliloquy Launches Interactive Kindle Books

Coliloquy, a Palo Alto startup, last week launched its first four titles exclusively for Amazon Kindle E-Ink devices. The titles are a digital take on the choose-your-own-adventure, allowing readers to make choices within a book that affect its outcome. Coliloquy founders Lisa Rutherford and Waynn Lue call it “Active Fiction,” and it’s an outgrowth of the Kindle Developer Program for Active Content (mostly used to develop games for Kindle devices); Coliloquy is the first company to develop books within the program. Each Coliloquy title is priced at $4.99.

Betsy Mitchell Joins Open Road

Open Road has announced that Betsy Mitchell will serve as strategic adviser for science fiction and fantasy. Mitchell retired last year as editor-in-chief of Del Rey and has 30 years of publishing experience. She will spearhead Open Road’s acquisition and publishing of backlist science fiction and fantasy titles for its Author Brand Program.

Ileene Smith Joining FSG as Exec Editor

Ileene Smith will join Farrar, Straus and Giroux as v-p and executive editor on February 15. She will be acquiring and editing authors on both the FSG and Hill and Wang lists. Smith has been executive editor at large for general interest books for Yale University Press since 2005, as well as the editorial director of Jewish Lives, a series of interpretive biographies for which she will continue directing at Yale.