james_nicoll

Not entirely correct. I believe that while Penguin distributes DAW, DAW is not actually an imprint of Penguin.

From the DAW home page:

Despite its high profile, DAW is still a small private company, owned exclusively by its publishers, Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert.

Here's my "are other people like me?" question: Do people buy by imprint these days? I'm referring to the end consumer and reader of course; it may be different for the library, store, and chain buyers.

I haven't looked at an imprint in general since the early days of Ballantine and DAW.

I look at (in order) the author's name if it's familiar and the imprint/name of the editor if available. I am more likely to take a risk on an unknown if I trust the gate keeper.

That works if you read enough in the field -- and pay attention to imprint-slash-editor -- to get a sense of who the reliable gatekeepers are.

Sadly, these days I don't think I could say that I read broadly enough across SF/F to have that sense.

I never look at the imprint.

Most imprints are meaningless; for me, the author is the brand. The only exception that comes to mind is Baen, which I associate with right-wing MilSF, but even that is subject to override if I recognize the author.

If there's an exploding spaceship on the cover, or some gal wearing two sashes and a strategicly placed BFG, you are probably correct in this assessment. Otherwise, not everything they publish is MilSF or I wouldn't own nearly as many Baen ebooks as I do.

Lately I mostly hear people talk about *avoiding* books by imprint, especially with regard to Baen. Don't recall anybody actively looking to buy by major imprint (the small presses are often different; people do pay more attention to the publisher in those cases) since the days of "DAW completists".

Of course in those early days when I might have striven for DAW completion, I had very little disposable income.

I did have a trust in the gate keeper (to use James' phrase) with those publishers, but the impression I have now is that that was probably because the editorship was small and I could depend upon a consistent taste. I'm not sure I can do that now with mainstream publishers.

Small press, as you observe, is different.

Do people buy by imprint these days?

Explicitly genre imprints (and this includes most small presses) have sufficiently narrow focus that they can be treated as brands (I believe a Romance reader can tell exactly how graphic the sex is in a book just from the imprint name). Once you start mixing fiction and non-fiction, then the imprint becomes "random books someone wanted to publish" and worthless as a brand.

At least, that was my opinion from reading the first three links.