On Monday I talked about how you define different genres. Today, I want to talk about how you define publishers. I know, I know. You’re probably thinking what the heck is she talking about. The publisher is the one that is mentioned on the back of the book. It’s the one that holds the copyright to it. What’s so difficult about that. It really isn’t that difficult – I’m just curious about what you guys think. How do you sort books by publishers.
Divisions
Most major publishing houses has different departments and divisions. What do I mean by divisions? I’m talking about a Children’s division, a Teen division (maybe, sometimes this counts as Children’s), a romance division, and so forth, that sort of thing. For example, HarperCollins Children is HarperCollins children division. Obviously. However, divisions are not to be confused with imprints… Do you care about the division of the publishing house the book was published in or do you just focus on the main publisher?
Imprint
Many of the major publishing houses also have different imprints. Imprints usually just publish a certain type of book, for example YA Fantasy or other types of books share similar characteristics, usually so it’s easier for the publishing house to market to a certain demographic. For example, Katherine Tegen Books and HarperTeen are both imprints of HarperCollins. HarperTeen mainly publishes YA books (duh) and is really the official “teen division of HarperCollins”. Katherine Tegen Books, meanwhile, is an imprint of HarperCollins that usually publishes “cool teen novels” and “high quality commercial fiction for children of all ages”. I honestly think this one is the hardest to differentiate, because usually a book published by an imprint will not only fall into the main publishing company, but also one of its divisions. Do you take imprints to account when listing the publisher? Do you even look to see if a publisher is an imprint of a larger company?
Location
And no, I am not talking about New York or Chicago or any other different city in the US. I’m talking about different countries. Most publishing houses have different foreign publishing branches. And most countries have their own edition of the same book (translated, cover changes, etc). Do you mention if a book is published by Bloomsbury USA Childrens? Or do you just leave it at Bloomsbury Childrens?
How do you label publishers?
Do you go by just the main publishing house?
Or their divisions or their imprints?
Or do you use a combination of them all?
I just let the UBB plugin select the publisher for me and go with that. I don’t really focus on the details. I guess I would if I had a relationship with publishers or really understood them, but I focus on the author and book series more.
The UBB plugin sure does make life easier, I guess I could do that too…
Thanks for stopping by Julie! 🙂
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I normally go for the imprints, but mainly whatever information that I can find on Goodreads if there wasn’t specific info sent from the publishers. I Don’t self-host so I don’t have the UBB plugin but it looks awesome! It sounds really useful and something that would be so helpful to a book blogger! 🙂 Interesting discussion topic — I’d never really put much thought into it before now.
The UBB plugin is really a lifesaver. So is Goodreads when looking for more book info. (Honestly, I think I rely on Goodreads more than the UBB plugin so…)
Thanks for stopping by Emily! 🙂