By Ingrid Süßmann
It’s spring, love is in the air – even more so at Random House Germany. The Munich-based publishing group has just launched a new online community called Sinnliche Seiten (which translates as “Luscious Pages”). As the name suggests, it’s all about love, romance and everything in between. The website offers news, reviews, videos and columns, a regular newsletter and an online shop. There’s also a gamification tool planned that will match readers with romance novels.
A few weeks earlier, Random House also announced a new event called lit.love, a reading festival for lovers of romance novels. During the two-day event, readers will have the chance to meet their favorite authors and take part in readings, workshops, and panel discussions. Laid out as a cooperation between Random House publishing houses Blanvalet, Diana, Goldmann, Heyne and young adult publishers cbj and Heyne fliegt, 20 German and international romance novel authors will take part at the event.
Rita Bollig, responsible for Digital Marketplace Development at Random House Germany said: “Through sinnliche-seiten.de and lit.love we want to highlight our backlist to romance readers and reach new customers.”
With sinnliche-seiten.de and lit.love, Random House has not only created a new meeting place for romantic readers, but also reacted to a trend that’s been getting stronger in the last years. More and more publishing houses are building communities around genres and niche interests like romance and crime. Following Random House Germany’s successful launch of its science fiction community diezukunft.de, doing the same for another strong genre like romance is the logical next step.
Further information:
- Check out diezukunft.de, where it’s all about science fiction (in German)
- To learn more about how other publishers reach their readers through communities of interest, read our articles on Herzenstage Virtual Romance Festival a Hit with YA Readers and German Publishers Organize LitBlog Convention