Escape Publishing: A New Digital-First Imprint from Harlequin Australia

Today, I am thrilled to welcome Kate from Harlequin Australia to the blog. Kate is here to tell you all about Harlequin's new digital-first imprint, Escape Publishing. Over to you, Kate....

Hi Nicki, thanks for hosting me today. I'm so very pleased to be here.

My name is Kate, and I'm the Managing Editor of Harlequin Australia's new digital-first imprint, Escape Publishing. Our aim is to bring Australian voices and stories to a global audience, and our books are DRM and geographic-restriction free. But that's all business. Let's talk fun, shall we?



Escape is looking to publish all subgenres of romance that you can think of – and any that you're clever enough to invent. As long as it's got a strong romantic focus, a happy ending, and falls between 5000 and 250 000 words, then we're interested in reading it. What does this mean for readers? Well, it means that we're going to offer more: more diversity, more options, and more choices. One of the benefits to digital-first publishing is smaller overhead costs, which means we can take more risks, cater to niches, and diverge onto the road less taken.

So you can expect genres that don't often get a look in. For example, we have a couple of science fiction romances in the pipeline. We also have a Scottish medieval, a YA space opera, and a whole pile of Australian-set contemporary romance that demonstrates the breadth and depth of living – and loving – in Australia.

We launched with five titles last week: Chains of Revenge by Keziah Hill: an erotic fantasy novella;  by Rebekah Turner: an urban fantasy debut; Christmas Wishes by Rhian Cahill: a holiday-themed novella;  Grease Monkey Jive by Ainslie Paton: a contemporary romance; and In Safe Hands by Lee Christine: a Sydney-set romantic suspense novel. We also have six novels releasing in December.

All of our launch titles are currently at a special launch price of $0.99 apiece, except for Chains of Revenge which is available free for a very limited time. So if you want to check us out, now is a great time to do so!



You can find out more about our launch titles, our upcoming releases, our publishing model, and ourselves on our website, which is www.escapepublishing.com.au. We're also across various social media, including facebook, twitter, and youtube. So do get in contact, let us know what you think, let us know what you're looking to read, and what we can do for you.

Thanks so much for having me on the blog to chat about Escape Publishing, and I look forward to hearing from all of you!