To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Arabesque, which was founded by Kensington Publishing in 1994 and bought by BET four years ago, has embarked on a yearlong $225,000 marketing campaign. It includes a newly designed anniversary logo imprinted on every book and the Great Romance Contest with a grand prize valued at $10,000.
The African-American romance imprint has made a big difference for African-American writers—and readers. BET Books v-p and publisher Linda Gill noted , "A decade ago these writers had nowhere to go. Arabesque kicked the doors down." The authors of three of the 12 books published the year that Arabesque launched—Francis Ray, Rochelle Alers and Donna Hill—have gone on to generate more than one million combined single titles in print, said Gill. Collections of Alers's Hideaway series and Ray's Falcon series are among the selections for this year's 10th anniversary Special Collector's series, a three-books-in-one package being published in trade paperback. The series are being promoted on BET's cable channel, as well as at BEA and on several African-American Web sites, including www.BET.com.
Over the past decade, Arabesque has increased its output from 12 books to 59 in 2004. Gill has no plans to increase that number soon, although, she noted, "we are always open to increases to respond to market tastes." Of the 450 books that Arabesque has published to date, said Gill, "we keep them in print with backlist promotions and special publishing programs." One example is this summer's four-book Sizzling Sands series, with novels by Donna Hill, Gwynne Forster, Sandra Kitt and Deirdre Savoy. The series is being promoted with book signings and special events in Boston, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Chicago and New York City.
Three years ago, BET Books diversified its publishing program by launching two additional African-American imprints—Sepia, which focuses on mainstream commercial fiction, and New Spirit, which offers inspirational fiction and nonfiction. "As big as Sepia and New Spirit have been for us, Arabesque is the shining light," said Gill. "It delivers the lion's share of BET sales. We look to the new imprints to contribute combined sales of 50% of our product mix."
In the fall, BET Books is adding a new line of African-American Christian romance. No decision has been reached yet on whether these books will be part of Arabesque or New Spirit. BET Books are distributed by Kensington to the trade.
