Simon & Schuster Launches Blackbookscentral.com

Posted on June 20, 2001

Simon & Schuster, Inc. has launched Blackbookscentral.com, an online community showcasing the talents of African-American authors from Simon & Schuster. The initial launch of blackbookscentral.com will focus on eight novelists from the Adult Publishing Group -- among them bestselling author Omar Tyree, whose next hardcover book Just Say No! is on sale August 17th. In the near future, the site will expand to include children's literature, nonfiction, audio, backlist and ebooks.

``Publishing African-American authors has long been a source of great pride and a strong business priority for all the divisions of Simon & Schuster,'' said Carolyn Reidy, President of the company's Adult Publishing Group. ``At blackbookscentral.com, we aim to provide the kind additional marketing support for our authors and extra content for readers that has been done so effectively for other interest groups at simonsays.com. While we have a strong African-American publishing program, we are confident that by using the internet we can help build the audience for our writers. This is an audience that we are determined to publish for and serve well.''

Highlights on blackbookscentral.com include book excerpts, author interviews, essays by Simon & Schuster authors and other features. As blackbookscentral.com grows, it will also carry information about author tour schedules, pre-publication essays and interviews, reading group guides, reader discussion groups and author online chats, as well as screensavers, postcards and quizzes. The site will also feature a discussion board for visitors, authors, and readers and writers to share their ideas and exchange opinions.

Marketing for Blackbookscentral.com includes email sent to 750,000 subscribers of Electonic Urban Report, a service site for the African-American community, email notifications to simonsays.com subscribers and Simon & Schuster accounts, as well as announcements to and links with other sites like Black Issues Book Review and Sisterfriends.com. The blackbookscentral.com URL will be on the dust jackets for a summertime mass market promotion of African-American titles, and will also be included in all advertising and promotion for Tyree's Just Say No! release. Blackbookscentral.com will also provide a newsletter which informs subscribers about upcoming books and authors.

Lolita Files, author of the upcoming book Child of God, is excited about the new website. She said, ``I am in awe. These are the kinds of grass roots things we as authors have been doing on our own for a long time, and it makes so much more of a difference to have you guys doing it for us on a larger scale for greatest impact. Then I went to the website, and was completely blown away! It's gorgeous.''