At the first of the year, Shebooks (shebooks.net) entered the booming e-singles market with a collection of nine titles aimed at the largest reader segment – women. Shebooks also announced plans for a unique subscription offering for accessing the publisher’s growing collection of titles.
The nine titles released on the Shebooks preview site today (view on shebooks.net) include six memoirs and three works of fiction by well-established authors and essayists, including Hope Edelman, Marion Winik, Faith Adiele, Jessica Anya Blau and Suzanne Paola.
At Shebooks, readers will find original and rarely seen memoir, fiction and journalism by and for women. Currently available for Kindle and Nook devices, the growing library of e-books—up to 15 a month, each between a long magazine article and a book in length—will be available on all devices and by subscription from the Shebooks.net site beginning in March.
“Women writers are looking for new outlets for their most personal work, and women readers crave great reads that fit into their busy lives,” said Laura Fraser, editorial director and a co-founder of Shebooks. “We are thrilled by the variety and quality of our first titles.”
Shebooks was co-founded in 2013 by Laura Fraser, a journalist, writing teacher and best-selling author (An Italian Affair); veteran magazine editor Peggy Northrop (former Global Editor-in-Chief of Reader’s Digest, former Editor-in-Chief of More, current Editor-in-Chief of Sunset); and publishing veteran Rachel Greenfield (former Executive Vice President, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia). Shebooks was awarded a seed grant by the New Media Women’s Entrepreneurial Fund administered by the American University’s J-Lab in 2013. The company is currently in the midst of raising its first round of seed funding.
Rachel Greenfield, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, says, “Women make up 71 percent of all e-book buyers—a $1.7B market. And women make up over two-thirds of all magazine subscribers. But there are actually very few outlets for quality writing by women at this length, even though the format is ideally suited to women’s busy lives. We think this idea, enabled by the advent of tablets, is ripe to explode and grow, and we have been getting an excellent reception as we take it to market.”
The nine books live on Shebooks.net today are:
Boys Like That: Two cautionary tales of love
A memoir by best-selling author Hope Edelman (Motherless Daughters; Motherless Mothers) of finding solace in unexpected places when her mother is stricken with cancer.
Guesswork: Essays on forgetting and remembering who we are
A collection of essays on love, memory, and things that last, by popular author and NPR commentator Marion Winik (author of Highs in the Low Fifties: How I Stumbled Through Single Life, and many other books).
His Eye Is on the Sparrow: An engagement in black and white
Ann Pearlman’s memoir of the beginnings of her interracial marriage, set in 1962 in Pittsburgh and Chicago, reveals a personal side of the civil rights movement and its effects on two families. Pearlman is the author of Infidelity, which was nominated for a National Book Award and made into a Lifetime movie.
The Nigerian-Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems
Faith Adiele’s insightful and often hilarious account of a clash between health care cultures. Adiele is author of the PEN award-winning memoir Meeting Faith, about becoming the first black Buddhist nun in Thailand.
Alone in the Woods: Cheryl Strayed, my daughter, and me
Micah Perks writes beautifully about mothering a determinedly independent child after growing up as one herself. Perks is a novelist (We Are Gathered Here) and memoirist (Pagan Time) and co-directs the creative writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The Risotto Guru: Adventures in eating Italian
In this amusing and appetite-whetting collection of essays, Laura Fraser journeys from the SpaghettiOs of her childhood to savor the best of Italian cuisine and the culture that cooked it up. Fraser, a co-founder of Shebooks, is the author of the international best-selling memoir An Italian Affair.
Owl in Darkness
Stolen Moments
Interconnected short stories by Suzanna Paola about how found objects—from a forgotten tube of lipstick to a pair of shoes left in a hotel room—transform three women’s lives and self-perceptions. Paola, a poet and essayist, is a Pushcart Prize and American Book Award winner.
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