‘Social media does not constitute a marketing plan.’
– Judith Curr, President and Publisher of the Atria Publishing Group.
Many Australian publishers now have a direct-to-digital imprint, whether for genre fiction, such as the romance imprints: Escape (Harlequin), Destiny (Penguin Random House), or HarperImpulse (HarperCollins). Other companies such as Momentum (Pan Macmillan) and Xoum publish almost exclusively in digital format across a range of genre and age groups.
These direct-to-digital or digital only lists enable publishers to take a risk with debut authors, where previously they would not have been able to justify the expense of a print run and distribution. In theory, a digital list allows publishers and the author to find and build an audience. But this is where it gets tricky. . .