Macmillan To Publish First Novel From Swoon Reads, a Crowdsourced Romance Imprint and Online Community
NEW YORK, NY — Macmillan announced today the first acquisition from Swoon Reads (www.swoonreads.com), its crowdsourced teen romance imprint and online community. Slated to be published in both print & ebook formats August 26, 2014, A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT by debut author Sandy Hall is an irresistible and original romance between two college students, Gabe and Lea, told from fourteen different viewpoints.
Sandy Hall, a teen librarian from Hawthorne, New Jersey, posted A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT to the Swoon Reads site in November 2013. Within weeks, the manuscript was rated “Five Hearts” by the Swoon Reads Community and considered to be one of the most “Swoonworthy” on the site. This brought it to the attention of Jean Feiwel, Publisher of Swoon Reads, and the rest of the Swoon Reads Board. One e-mail and two phone calls later, Sandy Hall signed her first book deal for World rights.
Jean Feiwel, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Swoon Reads, said “What started as a glimmer of an idea took form as a dedicated team here at Macmillan took the concept of a crowdsourced publishing Web site to heart. Now we have in Swoon Reads something exciting, fun, and yes, a little different.”
Author Sandy Hall said, “Everything in the past week has been wonderful and surreal. Having a novel published is a dream come true and I will do my best to represent Swoon Reads and the community.”
Since its launch on September 30, 2013, Swoon Reads has grown to include readers and writers from across the world who submit, read, and comment on manuscripts that capture the intensity and excitement of teen love. More than an imprint, Swoon Reads is a community whose members are involved in every step of the publishing process, from the initial discovery of the manuscript to the marketing and publicizing of the finished book.
To that end, Swoon Reads will be inviting its members to weigh in on the book jackets of A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT and the rest of the list, to vote on tour cities, and to tune into live, streamed conversations between the authors and members of the publishing team, including Publisher Jean Feiwel.
Jon Yaged, President of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group said, “Swoon Reads is a whole new approach to publishing. We are working with readers to select the books we publish and then involving the readers in the publishing experience. The growth and engagement in the community is fabulous and the excitement is growing as we announce our first list. We will offer unprecedented access to the entire publishing process of A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT and the Swoon Reads community will be involved every step of the way.”
Pan Macmillan and Macmillan Australia have also joined Swoon Reads and will simultaneously publish A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT. The next two manuscripts selected for publication will be announced March 2014 and April 2014.
NOTE TO THE PRESS:
Jean Feiwel‘s career was forged first at Avon Books, and then Scholastic, as the architect for their Trade Publishing program from 1983–2005. She is best known for her invention of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitter’s Club and the publishing of Goosebumps, Animorphs, Dear America, and many other bestselling series. In February 2006, she joined Macmillan as Senior Vice President and Publisher, where she founded her own imprint, Feiwel and Friends. In May 2007, she launched Square Fish (Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group’s trade paperback imprint), known for its innovative repackaging of both current bestsellers and classic backlist titles. Square Fish has published over 1,000 titles to date. In addition to Feiwel and Friends and Square Fish, she was also named Publishing Director of Henry Holt BYR in 2009. And on September 30, 2013, she officially launched Swoon Reads, a groundbreaking and new, crowdsourced imprint dedicated to finding and publishing original YA Romance. Jean lives in Westchester County, New York.
Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group comprises Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, Feiwel and Friends, First Second, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, Priddy Books, Roaring Brook Press, and Square Fish. These imprints are home to award-winning, New York Times–bestselling authors, including Madeleine L’Engle, Natalie Babbitt, Roald Dahl, Jack Gantos, Nancy Tillman, Catherynne M. Valente, Marissa Meyer, Paul Pope, Gene Luen Yang, Eric Carle, Leigh Bardugo, Lane Smith, Nick Bruel, Erin E. Stead, Philip C. Stead, and hundreds more popular authors and illustrators.
Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group is proud to publish many of the classics of children’s literature, including A Wrinkle in Time, Tuck Everlasting, The Black Cauldron,A Cricket in Times Square,Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and The BFG, as well as popular new classics Speak, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Dead End in Norvelt, On the Night You Were Born, and Bad Kitty. Headquartered in the landmark Flatiron Building in New York, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group is a division of Macmillan Publishers.
Macmillan Publishers is a global trade book publishing company with prominent imprints around the world. Macmillan publishes a broad range of award-winning books for children and adults in all categories and formats. U.S. publishers include Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Picador, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor Books. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa, Macmillan publishes under the Pan Macmillan name. The German company, Holtzbrinck Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints, S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur. Macmillan Publishers is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large, family-owned media company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.
