Precious Gems

Precious Gems was a short-lived experiment uniting Kensington with Wal-Mart. The partnership published short, category-length titles and made them available only through Wal-Mart's bricks-and-mortar establishments and the Wal-Mart website. The books were priced significantly under the list price of Harlequin titles, and authors received a flat fee for North American rights in lieu of the traditional advance and royalty structure. Those authors whose works were published outside the United States were paid royalties on those sales.

Authors who published Precious Gems titles include Trish Jensen, Karen Drogin, and Lisa Plumley.

In additional to the short, contemporary Precious Gems titles, Kensington also published Precious Gems Historical Romance under the same author arrangement.

• Precious Gems By The Numbers - A numerical listing of Precious Gems titles.