Talk:Avon (publisher)

Expanded information

I've added information about the various series in the early days of Avon. My reference (Canja, cited therein) gives the publisher's name as Myers, not Meyers, and doesn't mention his wife. Accounting4Taste 00:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

2009 change warning

Avon Books clearly needs a full history here. This is a company involved in the historical transition from pulps to paperbacks, a short-lived but interesting, and in some respects extremely influential, comics output and a major book history involving far more than bodice-ripping novels, but actually highly influential in women's reading. Comics peeps aren't going to look for Avon books. Book peeps aren't going to be wanting to wade through loads of comics stuff.

Proposal: split books and comics seperately - Avon as Avon (publishers) as now, and comics to Avon (publishers - comics) with link. Reason - the small amount of comics they produced were significant in terms of transition between comics and pulps, continuing the introduction of the sword and sorcery genre, and bridging SF in different genres. They were also groundbreaking in format terms. Thus they deserve more exposure than a few paragraphs in a general company history. In addition, comics history is generally treated as seperate in Wikipedia terms (as well as others) as well as raison d'etre for public enquiries, thus deserving a seperate entry.

The change will also focus on major re-writes on the information available.

Discussion is more than welcome. Without response by 28.12.2009 (happy birthday Jo!!! I love you) I will implement, 'cos I can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Archiveangel (talk • contribs) 14:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not see a split based on likely readership; if Avon's history covers different areas, so should the article. If the article gets large enough that a split is necessary because of size, then it might be sensible to split it into early and recent history. I'd suggest the article be expanded first, though, and split later. As a separate point, the list of every comics title doesn't have to be in the article -- that could be a separate List of Avon comics or some such, with additional details about publication dates and so on in that list. Mike Christie (talk) 11:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Mike Christie. For convenience and compactness, having all relevant information in one place is preferable unless it become absolutely too unwieldy. I'd have to urge caution that any history of Avon Books be concise and to the point, lest that section turn into a fan site. Archiveangel's enthusiasm and apparent expertise are both greatly welcome, though I think reasonable concerns arise when the discussion turns to superlatives like "groundbreaking" and imperatives such as "they deserve more exposure," which sounds promotional. (Also, "Avon Books" is a company or an imprint, singular; thus, the phrase should read "it deserves more exposure.") -- Tenebrae (talk) 23:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a note on that last point; in British English (and possibly Canadian and Australian too) companies are plural entities in speech, so that's not an error. The article is about an American company, though, so it should be in American English. Mike Christie (talk) 00:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting replies so far, thanks - 1) just for info: the rough article, unsplit and still being edited, currently runs to approximately 10,000 words and I can't see how to reduce it much without missing key publications or innovations (ie the book vending machines). I'll happily leave it as one article if that's the consnsus, but think it's probably getting unwieldy. 2) I've written so as to leave the comics info as a sub-section, so it can be pulled later without a major re-write - just a short reference para or two. Minor point - there's a slight chronological discontinuity by doing that - the comics years cross over with some other events so date-delineated headings don't quite flow correctly. 3) as I'm writing articles on old comic book companies I'm finding that there's no standard labelling for the pages - some are under <name of publishing company, comics> some just as the title - my suggestion was part of an attempt to be standard in my approach (see talk on Future Comics for an example). Keeping it as one item kinda departs from my original plan to fill in missing comics companies articles pre-70's (but I can live with that, I think) 4) Useful point on seperating the comics list (currently in the word count above), thanks. 5) I'm cautiously limiting mentioning individual titles to those that have a historical context to them - a few '1st paperbacks by particular authors', 1st of a particular genre, their most infamous teen trash novels etc - and will be keeping clear of expanding series coding details so as to steer as clear as possible from fannishness - which I'm not, it just became an interesting sideline to the comics article I originally planned, and not easy to dig out elsewhere (usually my criteria for getting involved in any article). 6) sensible warning about superlatives and promotionalism noted - although I think groundbreaking certainly applies to their early involvement in the paperback genre, the 1st sword and sorcery comic (see a recent Comic Book Marketplace article by long-term Conan writer Roy Thomas for exactly that point), the ridiculous sales figures for Rosemary Roger's 'Sweet Savage Love' and especially Judith Krantz's 'The Thorn Birds'. I'll keep the anti-superlative spray can nearby and use liberally. I've no intention of producing a fan puff, but was surprised what Avon had done when I dug in, and how difficult it was to pull together from disparate sources 7) Think I'll stick to 'that deserves more exposure' in future <g>. Apologies for length - but I'd like to get this as close to consensus as possible before launching in New Year (I'm working on a number of other things as well, and keep getting sidetracked ... ho hum). Cheers!

Archiveangel (talk) 13:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I'm all for labeling groundbreaking things as groundbreaking, as long as we have an RS historian, critic, journalist, etc. stating it, rather than us drawing that conclusion, which would be OR. We could, obviously, just state the plain facts of whatever the relevant thing is, and just not characterize it with a word like "groundbreaking". But these are fairly minor points — getting the facts themselves in is what's important. -- Tenebrae (talk) 21:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I'm constantly aware of the 'original research' catches - luckily I have refs for the examples I quoted above. Sometimes it's a problem, though - I've had one assertion deleted because I forgot to ref it, and I'll be blowed if I can find it again even though I'm sure Lew Stringer (( in case you don't know - one of our early British lesser gods of fandom still at it today http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/ )) put it online! Teach me to keep copies of refs, I guess. Cheers! Archiveangel (talk) 10:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Avon Romance

I just added some information on the romance side of Avon, which is now the primary work of the imprint. I think this whole article needs an overhaul to lean more toward romance and less toward pulp comics, as Avon is a major moneymaker for HarperCollins and the single biggest romance imprint in the genre. I suggest changing the image to a cover of Kathleen Woodiwiss's The Flame & The Flower -- widely recognized as the first modern romance novel. With the romance industry at 1.7billion dollars and romance as more than 50% of the consumer paperback market, it seems odd that this entire article would be about a long dead business model for a thriving publishing imprint. Risingphoenix7 (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

While it may or may not be a major moneymaker presently, the article is more concerned with the entirety of the company's history, not just the last few years.--Tenebrae (talk) 14:59, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I've just looked over some of Risingphoenix7's edits, a new user who has only been on Wikipedia since July 4. It's very understandable how a new user might now quite have all the policies and guidelines down. It's a bit of a concern that at least one citation, which was given as a raw URL, did not support what was claimed. Another citations was only a second reference ("Thurston pp. 47-48") without a first full citation. Of equal concern is the tone, which seems more fannish and promotional — blurby — than NPOV. I've made some adjustments and added citation requests. I've also removed the laundry list of authors since it was simply a list with no context. Are these authors under exclusive Avon contract? Are these authors in 2010 only? Are these authors of several books for Avon or just one book? The idea of a section on authors with ties to the company is good, but this needs to be in a prose section that answers such questions; a raw list does not do that. (In cases of discrete factual information, such as a list of magazine titles, a list format works since the parameters are so strict and little if any additional context is needed beyond the introduction: Avon published these 20 titles in these genres U.S. Paratroops is a military title, Blazing Six-Guns is a Western.)--Tenebrae (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Longarm and Lone Star book series

Why no mention of either of these "adult westerns" ? 2600:8800:395:B000:A41B:6AA0:976E:58AA (talk) 09:10, 2 September 2023 (UTC)