First Digital Publisher to Feature a Pop Culture Line
NEW YORK CITY – (Dec. 5, 2012) – Riverdale Avenue Books (RAB), a new publisher specializing in e-books and audiobooks, will launch December 17th. Headed by veteran literary agent and publisher Lori Perkins, RAB will publish five separate imprints and will start with two titles.
“We are the first full service digital publisher to launch a pop culture line, with a foreign rights department and a Los Angeles based film agent,” according to Ms. Perkins. “We are also working with Audio Realms to produce simultaneous audio books on most of our titles.”
The five imprints are:
- Riverdale/Magnus Books, a joint venture with award-winning LGBT publisher, Magnus Books, created by Donald Weise, which will publish 24 LGBT titles a year beginning with the Dietrich/Coward biography. Other books in the pipeline include an unauthorized biography of Gore Vidal’s love life, as well as a gay Twilight.
- Riverdale Pop will publish a pop culture title each month. Its first title, an unauthorized EL James biography, already has foreign rights sales prior to publication. Other celebrity subjects will include Katie Holmes and Justin Bieber.
- RAB HSF is a horror, science fiction and fantasy line.
- RAB Truth is an erotic memoir line.
- RAB Desire will publish erotica and erotic romance.
The first two books are:
- THE SECRET LIFE OF EL JAMES: An Unauthorized Biography, by New York Times best-selling author Marc Shapiro;
- DEEPLY SUPERFICIAL: MARLENE DIETRICH, NOEL COWARD AND ME, by Michael Menzies
“RAB will give readers the same immediate gratification that they have come to expect from all forms of media and entertainment,” Ms. Perkins said. “Each imprint represents a genre that we believe is consumable, and will keep our readers coming back for more. Simply put, we will give readers the books they crave.”
RAB’s offices at 5676 Riverdale Avenue in New York City are the former offices of Baen Books, the first successful genre epublisher.
RAB hosts Between the Covers, a free monthly reading series in the East Village at Happy Endings Lounge, 302 Broome Street, on the first Friday of every month, Betweenthecovers.journurl.com.
Ms. Perkins, a leading New York literary agent, was formerly Editorial Director of Ravenous Romance. Prior to founding Magnus Books, Mr. Weise was the Publisher of Alyson Books.