Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Visionaries
Brent Lewis
Visionary Leadership into the Digital Era
Brent Lewis is Director, Internet & Digital for Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., a leading
publisher of women’s fiction and the world’s largest publisher of series romance.
Brent leads the strategic development and operational execution of Harlequin’s digital
publishing and marketing programs. This includes Harlequin’s own site, featuring a
robust community of readers, a leading and widely recognized e-book program,
digital audio, mobile distribution, digital-only content, and leveraging Harlequin’s
famous brand in the Web 2.0 world. Brent has over 16 years of marketing experience
within publishing, covering trade, educational, and children’s products. Brent has
developed Internet marketing and commerce solutions for over ten years, including
Harlequin’s e-book strategy and site development. He has worked in the U.S.,
Canadian, and UK publishing markets.
Harlequin Enterprises Limited is the global leader in series
romance and one of the world's leading publishers of women's
fiction. The Toronto-based company publishes over 115 titles a month in 25 languages
in 94 international markets on six continents. These books are written by over 1,300
talented authors worldwide, offering women a broad range of reading from romance to
psychological thrillers to relationship novels. With 131 million books sold in 2005,
Harlequin is a very powerful brand for female readers. Brent Lewis has earned the
reputation of being one of the publishing industry’s leading innovators and is
responsible for the LibreDigital relationship.
While Harlequin is a book publisher, their comprehensive digital strategy represents
best practices that are instructive for all types of publishing entities. Brent Lewis
continues to lead the development and implementation of the strategy has helped them
build new revenue streams and profitable businesses in just a few years. His efforts fly
in the face of the commonly held belief that romance novel content consumed primarily
by women is a poor candidate for digital publishing programs.
Brent Lewis and the Harlequin team are true cross-media publishers. It is their goal to
provide their content to their loyal customers on their media platforms of choice with
outstanding ease of purchase and delivery. They design their product and marketing
mixes before the first word of a book is written and develop the content using
technologies that make it relatively easy to release multiple editions of book content on
platforms and devices that include iPods, XM radio, cell phones, and dedicated book
readers. They also build relationships with their customers via blogs, forums, and the
Harlequin Community and by partnering with MySpace, Second Life, and other social
community sites.
Lewis states that “Harlequin uses digital to develop and sell entertaining content in a
variety of formats, to nurture reader relationships, and to build our brands.” They
published 100% of their 2007 front list titles in both print and digital formats. E-books
are priced lower than printed books. They work very closely with digital channel
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