As we inch toward the end of the Spooky Season I am going to be highlighting resources to help you all year long.
One of my favorites is The Lineup, a champion of dark and spooky books. I like this resource so much, I am under contract with them to write for them 4x a year. I always do two wrap ups, one focused on the Stoker Awards and another as a Year End overview. The other 2 pieces are on topics Senior Editor Lisa Quigley and I agree on. To see all of my From the Haunted Stacks pieces, you can click here.
But The Lineup offers way more to you and your patrons than the four articles I contribute, so I invited Quigley herself to share more with all of you library workers about what both site she oversees, The Lineup and Murder & Mayhem, have for you all year long. And spoiler, one of my favorite parts about these sites is that they prioritize, the backlist.
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I’m delighted to be back on RA for All once again! By now you will likely be familiar with my love of the horror genre as well as some of my own personal history as a fan and author.This Halloween season, I want to share just how obsessed I am with my job as Senior Editor of The Lineup and Murder & Mayhem—sister sites owned by Open Road Integrated Media (ORIM). ORIM’s primary mission is to help voracious readers find books they’ll love.
Here’s the thing. In my humble opinion, there is just no other publisher + digital media company quite like ORIM. In the broader publishing industry, we are uniquely positioned due to our unapologetic emphasis on breathing new life, love, and readership into the backlist. A book doesn’t stop being worth reading just because it was published more than six months ago…and we help readers discover treasures in the backlist, whether the books are published by us or another publisher. After all, "a book is 'new' if is to the reader."
We are a publisher, yes—but we are first and foremost a champion of books. In addition to publishing our own diverse catalog of books, we also partner with 100+ additional publishers—from small press to Big 5—to market an astonishing number of backlist books with the ultimate goal of matching readers with books.
In many ways, our mission is complementary and often parallel with the mission of libraries and librarians. On that note, we do work extensively with Overdive and Hoopla to make tens of thousands of titles available to libraries in eBook form. We are a very library-friendly publisher, all about reading.
Most publishers would actually love to have the continual flow of reader interest in their backlist. That said, most marketing dollars and energy goes into making new books. So, the focus for most publishers will inevitably be on the frontlist. This strategy is often the result of both budgetary and manpower limits and constraints—and does not reflect the actual passion and hearts of people in the publishing industry. Everyone wishes they could give more time and love to the backlist, but as the publishing machine moves forward, some books inevitably fall out of the marketing schema.
Additionally, backlist marketing is an often a different type of marketing, done over a longer period of time and making use of ongoing reader interest using quite different ways of introducing them to that perfect next read. That’s where ORIM comes in with a number of innovative verticals aimed at matching hungry readers with a whole world of backlist books. But what’s most relevant for you as librarians—as well as your patrons—are our genre-specific content sites that match readers with books: Early Bird Books, The Lineup, The Portalist, The Archive, Murder & Mayhem, and A Love So True. With site content that’s regularly delivered directly to your inbox, these are excellent Readers Advisory resources for both librarians and readers alike.
Moreover, our site editors (hey, that’s me!) are avid and knowledgeable readers with a passion for books. We collaborate with our talented freelancers to produce helpful and informative content that’s actually grounded in knowledge, love, expertise, and respect for our genres and subgenres. Side note: if any of you are ever interested in writing for any of the sites, we LOVE it when librarians write for us! Feel free to send pitches to site editors at any time!
For example, as Senior Editor of The Lineup (our horror, true crime, and paranormal site), it’s crucial for me to work with freelancers who deeply know and love the genre. I’ve deliberately brought on freelancers who are invested in the horror world—genre leaders like Sadie Hartmann and Ashley Saywers of Night Worms, Gwendolyn Kiste, Eric LaRocca, Janelle Janson, Stephanie Sendaula, Gabino Iglesias, Kathryn E. McGee, Mackenzie Kiera, Mary K. McBrayer, Michael J. Seidlinger, and of course—the Library World’s Horror Maven we all know and love, Becky Spratford.
It’s important to me that we’re not only “producing content”, but that we’re writing stories, lists, and recommendations that actually reflect the community’s interests, tastes, concerns, and diversity. My ongoing mission is to make The Lineup a central hub for fans of horror literature.
And finally, I’ll introduce you to an exciting new initiative from this year from ORIM, one that is near and dear to my heart: the Free Voices campaign. Free Voices seeks to promote free speech, oppose book banning, and lift up the voices of the books being challenged across the country.
Additionally, here are some of the pieces published on Early Bird Books in support of books that are being challenged across the United States:
Wishing you all a very thrilling end to Spooky Season!
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