How awesome is this bit of news?
Harlequin Enterprises Limited (http://www.eHarlequin.com), the global leader in series romance and one of the world’s leading publishers of women’s fiction, announced today the launch of Tell Harlequin (http://www.TellHarlequin.com) — an online advisory panel that allows readers input into the direction of future novels by voicing their opinions and sharing their book experiences directly with the publisher.
You can read the article in it’s entirety here: Harlequin Launches Tell Harlequin Reader Panel.
Thoughts? What do you guys think about this?
Me? I, personally think it’s pretty awesome that for those of us out there that don’t write but have lots of ideas finally have a place where we can throw those ideas out there and know that it might possibly be picked up and written about. I think it’s pretty genius and will probably get a lot of traffic.
So seriously, what do you guys think about this?
Looks very cool.
I think I will wait and see if any of the ideas actually get used. Then I will decide whether or not I like it…
Hopefully they really are looking for feedback and not just trying to *seem* like they care what their readers want.
It sounds great on the surface. Folks these days love to share opinions more than ever, what with all the various social networks. Companies are smart these days to build a social network that is unique.
I do wonder what the legal aspects are – if one panel member should have such a brilliant and distinct idea and Harlequin rolls with it, will free books, etc. be enough of a compensation should the HQN book in Q go on to be some kind of phenomenal best-seller?
I downloaded the PDF on their legal speak, but I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll have to look it over again to try to understand how they’re covering booties on that one. Being HQN though, bet they have said booties covered.
From a Marketing perspective, I can only imagine what the HQN staff that formerly held all the “power” so to speak in decision making thinks about yet another set of hands in on their decision making process. Sometimes, there can be way too many. I don’t know what the HQN situation is with their decision making processes of course, just speaking from personal experience. Too many opinions can be just as counterproductive as they may be useful. Depends.
As a reader, I think it’s probably a cool move on their part. A lot of readers definitely sport some crazy good ideas on blogs and other social sites. I think this could very well be popular with readers!
Oh wow, I didn’t think about any of that but I still think that it’ll be pretty popular amongst the readers.