Harlequin’s Malle Vallik On Spark
I have a Tina-Fey-level crush on Nora Young –in a respectful way of course. I was disappointed to miss her at the MESH conference last week, but was delighted to hear her on the radio talking publishing 2.0 with Malle Vallik. For the record Vallik was Nora’s guest. I don’t listen to the radio that often so I was excited.
Vallik has some great insights in the long version of the interview available here. Apparently rich-media PDFs are in the pipeline at Harlequin. The bit about adoption being driven by woman reading on their computers, instead of their couches, because they won’t be disturbed is priceless.
She contradicts herself a little on the subject of DRM. She talks customer choice at the beginning of the interview then glosses over the DRM issue at the end. The pass along rate for a physical Harlequin book is seven people. Vallik isn’t clear on if pass along activity is stealing or not. In print it is fine. For digital she gets turned around on herself. A photocopy for sale on eBay is not the same thing as sharing a drugstore paperback. She references both activities interchangeably in the same breath.
Nora doesn’t call her on it. I enjoyed the interview anyway. Rock on Spark.
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