By Dennis Abrams
Suvudu, Random House’s online one-stop shop for fantasy, science fiction, manga, and gaming, has announced the launch of Suvudu Universe, a new online community for science fiction and fantasy bloggers.
With it, the community (powered by Tidal Labs), kicks off with fresh content from bloggers covering the universe of sci-fi and fantasy pop culture, literature, film, gaming and more. Suvudu Universe wants bloggers to join the community and connect with fellow contributors from around the world, along with the opportunity to enter contests and participate in Q&A sessions with notable personalities while promoting their own brand and blog.
Since Suvudu’s launch in 2008, it has gained wide-spread acclaim as a fan-focused site, which makes it an ideal fit for a blogger community. Suvudu itself has a combined social media following of nearly 10,000 fans across Facebook and Twitter, and the Suvudu Universe hopes to expand on that to reach new readers while continuing to increase easy discovery of science fiction and fantasy content across all publishers.
“The Suvudu Universe is a win-win for all. Readers now have access to even more quality content as bloggers gain recognition, and Suvudu enjoys increased content, reach, and community,’ said Kristin Fritz, Suvudu content director, in a written statement. “Community-generated content is a great way to highlight more voices and discussion around the areas about which readers are passionate.”
The community will live on the Suvudu website under Suvudu Universe, and placement of posts will be determined by the level of reader engagement. When they’re accepted into the Suvudu Universe, bloggers will receive badges that range from “Suvudu Preferred Poster” to “Most Talked About and Top Contributor.”
Ms. Fritz told Publishing Perspectives, “Our family of verticals is designed to reach readers and media consumers online, in the spaces in which they already dwell. We aim to deliver inspiration, information, and context, related to books, authors, and the stories about and around them. Ultimately, our verticals will serve as opportunities for discovery for readers and consumers, and in turn will extend our reach into this dense digital landscape, we increase the size of the Penguin Random House digital footprint. The Suvudu Universe is a brand-new extension of that family, a sort of cousin to the verticals, in which bloggers will be able to immerse themselves in a community of like-minded fans of sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, comics, and more, while leveraging some of the resources available by being part of our larger family.”