“On November 18th, get sucked in,” urges the book trailer for Disney-Hyperion’s debut e-book original novel, Confessions of a High School Vampire: Birth by the pseudonymous Siona McCabre.Aimed at young adults, the eBook is based on the I <3 Vampires (I Heart Vampires, in non-emoticon speak), a Web series found on Disney's Take180 Web site, which offers a variety of Web shows featuring viewer-shaped content.
Confessions of a High School Vampire: Birth follows the story of a high school boy who wakes up one morning with two strange bites on his neck and later discovers that these bites have transformed him into a vampire. “I <3 Vampires is one of the most popular series on the Take180 site—it seems to have somewhat of a cult following,” says Suzanne Murphy, v-p and publisher of Disney Publishing Worldwide. Given the digital format of the original series, she notes, “What better way to bring the book to fans than an eBook? We are very excited about this book and feel it will be very successful. It has adventure, romance, and a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, and will appeal to the vampire fan reading crowd as well of fans of the Webisodes.”
Publishing Confessions of a High School Vampire: Birth as an e-book also enabled Disney to get the product on the market quickly, given the Web series’s current popularity and the first two seasons’ episodes availability on DVD, Murphy adds. “We were able to turn this around much faster than we would a print book, even though the e-book requires the same editorial care, copyediting, cover design, and all those things required for any good book” she says.
Due on December 20 is Disney-Hyperion’s second original e-book, Daniel Waters’s Generation Dead: Stitches: Stories of the Undead, a collection of four short stories based on this book series starring zombie teens.
Going forward, Murphy says, “We plan to be very creative and keep our eye out for additional opportunities for original e-book projects. The ability to get these books out quickly is incredibly satisfying to us and to readers.”
I <3 Vampires: Confessions of a High School Vampire: Birth by Siona McCabre. Disney-Hyperion e-book, $6.99 Nov. ISBN 978-1-4231-6768-6