Category: News
21 things we’ve learned from the BMS Masterclasses (so far)
In the buildup to our two new BMS Masterclasses with James Spackman in October and November, here’s a selection of his takeaways from leading marketers, each offering their pearls of wisdom on nostalgic tech, culinary-inspired campaigns and much more.
Partners can boost our ambition. Andrea Bowie (PRH Marketing Officer) described how the invigorating drive of Tom Fletcher’s management team and the sheer s
ize of FMCG giant Warburtons (their “crumpet partner”) helped Puffin think big with the Christmasaurus campaign.
Working with teachers is a big deal, and getting bigger. But not easier. All three of our speakers in the children’s Masterclass acknowledged it as a specialist discipline. Understanding schools’ scheduling, budgets, vocabulary even, and what makes a lesson plan genuinely useful … are all vital.
Publishers can learn from the music industry about promoting events. The Christmasaurus team didn’t announce all their dates at once, and held some back to be added “due to demand”.
“Making stuff” isn’t everything in marketing, but it’s still important. Jenny Fry (Communications Director, Canongate) described how her team reaped huge rewards from the time, money and staff creativity invested in the POS for The Girl Who Saved Christmas by Matt Haig, as indies backed it to the hilt.
An author tour can be approached like theatre. Jenny Fry was clear that Matt Haig’s events are less “book talk” and more “one man show”.
World Book Day tokens get kids reading. One in four kids (aged 8-11) in the NLT Annual Literacy Survey said the book they bought with their 2016 World Book Day book token was the first book they had owned, we were told by Kirsten Grant, Director of WBD.
Fancy dress has been crucial to World Book Day’s long term success. It is the second biggest dressing up occasion in the UK every year, after Halloween.
There’s no model for a big book campaign any more. Everything should be bespoke, said Sara Lloyd (Digital and Communications Director at PanMac): “if there’s a template, we may as well all go home”.
If in doubt, go back to the text. When you’re stuck, creatively, (said Jessica Killingley, ex-Hodder & Stoughton), remember that “we’re all muppets, compared with the author” so find a way to go back to the source and use their work …
Focus groups help you pick the right words to talk to your audience in language that works for them. Julia Pidduck (ex-Marketing Manager at Orion) explained how the verbal branding of Julian Fellowes’ Belgravia was centred around three words – secret, scandal and intrigue – because they had been found to resonate with the audience. And because they were targeting a TV audience as well as book buyers, they learned to refer to it as a “series”.
An author’s social audience gives you “feel”, not just data. Sara Lloyd told us that the team learned the tone and character of Joe Wicks’ followers simply by studying their interactions, which was just as important as their demographics.
A good designer is your campaign’s best friend. If they get what you’re trying to do and are on-board from the start, explained Jessica Killingley, while describing her campaign for Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave is Forgiven, they will bring distinctiveness and creativity to the work.
Marketers are educators. As Julia Pidduck put it, “our colleagues don’t know what they don’t know”, so if new technologies creates an opportunity, it’s up to you to demonstrate within your publishing team how it can be used to reach readers.
You need boots on the ground. An author’s social media platform is all very well, but the ones who meet lots of booksellers, face to face, really make a difference. And, with that other old-school campaign element – proofs – new-school social media only amplifies the effect.
A big app launch is like a startup…. meaning long hours of constant vigilance, real-time results and quick adjustments … and also lots of excitement, as Julia Pidduck explained (for the Belgravia campaign). It also means you need to act like a retailer and sharpen your customer service skills for the public.
‘Behind the scenes moments’ is a key new trend (AKA Joe Wicks’s Tears). The authentic emotion of an author opening their first box of books is a big deal to their fans. Readers ARE curious about how the publishing process works. “In a world of beta testing and user-generation”, said Sara Lloyd, “consumers are interested and expect to be let in”. And this can apply to fiction too …
Marketers should learn to write like booksellers talk, explained Caroline Maddison (Head of Audience Development at Penguin) and Claire Wilshaw (Penguin’s Audience Development Director). The creators of the #ByBook multi-title campaign, they channeled their inner retailers to persuasively recommend books on their site. The difference to conventional book blurb is striking…
A hashtag is a better listening device than broadcasting tool, said Justine Gold, ex of Little, Brown, in relation to her promotion of Margaret Atwood’s backlist: the I [heart] Atwood campaign. If your message is clear and shareable, you don’t necessarily need a hashtag.
A novel is like a plate of food. Inspired by Zainab Juma at Penguin, Caroline Maddison suggested describing books as though they were dishes (ingredients, flavours, size, etc).
… by the same token, Mills & Boon novels are bars of chocolate to their readers, according to Emma Pickard, the imprint’s Senior Marketing Executive. An indulgent treat that they absolutely know will be enjoyable.
Programming nostalgia is a thing. Matthew Young, designer at Penguin and one of three creators of their groundbreaking Richard Dawkins anniversary campaign, told us that people’s fond memories of obsolete code (Dawkins’ evolution modeler) was a crucial PR draw.
The physical presence of books is a powerful draw. The #ByBook video used giant books, being carried, held, used, by human beings. Not so much glorifying the object, but showing it in use.
James Spackman is a freelance publisher and consultant leading on a series of marketing masterclasses hosted by the Book Marketing Society. The next masterclass is on Thursday 23rd November (on Brands).
About our new campaigns and awards showcase for the BMS website
Members regularly tell us that being able to learn about campaigns across the industry is one of the most valuable services we offer. We’re constantly inspired by marketers from across the industry willing to share what made their campaign tick – from how it came together to how it was executed, and especially what they learned and would do better next time.
So we wanted to find a way to take this further, and in the same spirit give members more chances to see what is behind an Award-winning or notable marketing campaign.
This has lead to the creation of a new section on our updated website, which features a searchable database of submissions for winning & highly commended campaigns.
If your campaign goes on to win an Award or commendation we want to reassure you about the information that will be available to browse. You will notice there are new features on the submission form which allow you to control the visibility of sensitive details, such as campaign budgets and sales figures. We will also send you a preview copy of the showcase page before it goes live, so there is a further opportunity to make appropriate changes if required.
In the spirit of openness and sharing we do offer access to the showcase to all members, on the basis that marketers from your team are willing to include their campaign in the showcase should they be selected.
If you have any questions or suggestions, do contact us at [email protected]
Spring Season Campaign Award winners
The Award winners of the January-March 2017 Marketing Campaign Awards were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s member meeting on 30 May, hosted by Hachette UK.
The Adult Fiction category
- Sarah Aratoon and Emma Bravo of PanMacmillan were Highly Commended for their campaign for Joanna Trollope’s City of Friends.
- Naomi Berwin of Hodder was also Highly Commended for her “stunning” campaign for Stephanie Garber’s debut, Caraval.
- The winning campaign was for Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes, which Hannah Gamon and Cait Davis of HarperCollins lead to success by “turning a challenging ending into an asset” with the hashtag #WTFthatending.
The Guerrilla Marketing category (campaigns costing less than £2.5k)
- Aimee Oliver of Yellow Kite received a Highly Commended for her campaign for The FODMAP Friendly Kitchen.
- The Winner in this category was Tara Al Azzawi of Fourth Estate for her “fantastically successful social campaign” for Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele.
![One Pound Meals: Delicious Food for Less by [Barclay, Miguel]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61wR9BxnRVL.jpg)
The Adult Non-Fiction category
- Highly Commended for Elke Desanghere, Julia Murday, and Josie Murdoch of Penguin Life for their campaign for Ruby Wax’s A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled.
- The winning campaign was for Miguel Barclay’s One Pound Meals, led by Viviane Basset and Rob Chilvers of Headline.
![The One Memory of Flora Banks by [Barr, Emily]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51CQsUwiZ2L.jpg)
Children’s category
- Roisin O’Shea of Scholastic received a Highly Commended for her campaign for Lisa Thompson’s The Goldfish Boy.
- The Winners in this category were Natasha Collie and Rachel Khoo of Penguin for their “stylist and intriguing” campaign for The One Memory of Flora Banks, by Emily Barr.
The Multi-title Campaign category
- Michael Joseph‘s Beth Cockeram received a Highly Commended for her campaign celebrating Asian Mole’s 50th birthday.
The Spring Season winners joined the winners of the May-August and September-December Awards to form the shortlist of the BMS Annual Campaign Awards 2016/2017, announced at The Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicity Conference on 13 June 2017.
Hodder & Stoughton wins Marketing Team of the Year
The winners of the Book Marketing Society’s Annual Campaign Awards were announced at The Bookseller’s Marketing and Publicity Conference on Tuesday 13 June 2017. Campaigns by HarperCollins, Orion, Penguin and Hodder & Stoughton were honoured, with Hodder & Stoughton receiving the Marketing Team of the Year award.
Jo Henry, Chair of the BMS Annual Judging panel, said: “Our judges were thoroughly impressed with the very high standard of the campaigns that were on the Annual shortlists, so much so that in one category they chose a runner-up in addition to the winner for the first time. There were long discussions over many of the shortlists but in the end judges were unanimous in rewarding each of the five category winners, plus a Marketing Team of the Year Award to recognise a consistently high standard of marketing campaigns from Hodder & Stoughton over the past 12 months – a particular achievement given such a strong year overall for book marketers.’
In the Guerrilla campaign category, which recognises campaigns under £2,500, Tara Al Azzawi of Estate/HarperCollins was honoured for her ‘genuine and authentic’ social campaign for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele that tied in with International Women’s Day. The award’s shortlist also included Aimee Kitson of Constable and Little, Brown’s campaign for Ian Wright’s A Life in Football, and Lindsay Terrell of Faber’s campaign for Tim Book Two by Tim Burgess.
Trapeze/Orion Publishing Group’s Anna Bowen was judged the winner of the Children’s category for her collaborative campaign for DanTDM’s Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal. Also in the running were Penguin’s Natasha Collie and Rachel Khoo for their intriguing campaign for The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr, and Hodder’s Naomi Berwin for her campaign for Oli White’s Generation Next.
In the Adult Non-Fiction category, Paul Martinovic of Penguin/Viking was awarded the prize for the resourceful use of anenigmatic and unavailable author in his campaign for John Le Carre’s autobiography, The Pigeon Tunnel. He beat off competition from Caroline Butler of Ebury for Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham, and Headline’s Viviane Basset and Rob Chilvers for their campaign for Miguel Barclay’s One Pound Meals.
Claudia Toia of Penguin Books was honoured in the Multi-Title category for her unique and innovative campaign celebrating Richard Dawkins’ backlist. The award’s shortlist included Bethan Ferguson and Jeska Lyons of Quercus’ Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups campaign, and Alice Morley and Fleur Clarke of Hodder’s King for a Day campaign for Stephen King’s backlist.
In the Adult Fiction category, Hodder & Stoughton’s Vickie Boff and Fleur Clarke were judged the winners for their challenging campaign for Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. The judges also chose a runner up, highly commending Katie Hall of Faber & Faber for her ‘visually arresting’ campaign for Max Porter’s Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Also in contention for the award was Hannah Gamon and Cait Davis of HarperCollins’ campaign for Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough.
New half-day workshops to boost skills and increase campaign impact
The Book Marketing Society has created a new series of workshops that will boost skills and increase day-to-day campaign impact for those working in book marketing and promotions.
The sessions are designed to get the maximum out of a half-day with loads of practical tips, insights and examples specifically tailored for book comms.
SEO & Search Marketing with Peter Phillpot
Thursday 28 Sept 2017, 9.30am-1pm, Nielsen Book offices
This course is for digital marketers and sales teams with experience of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and those looking to jumpstart their SEO practice. Learn the latest strategies and tactics used by digital agencies to optimise digital content and increase visibility in Google. From keyword research to competitor analysis, technical considerations to earning links; following the practical tasks included in each section of the course, you’ll take your SEO expertise to the next level.
Full detail and bookings:
https://www.bookmarketingsociety.co.uk/seo-workshop
[previous]
Creativity & Social Media with Julia Kingsford
Thursday 13 July 2017, 9.30am-1pm, Nielsen Book offices
Julia Kingsford presents a practical workshop offering real-world creative takeaways that will immediately boost your day to day marketing as well as bigger ideas for long term strategy. Aimed at anyone who wants to get more out of their book marketing and promotion whatever size of company or stage of career, whether promoting books is your full time job or a side hustle.
Sharper Copywriting with Richard Spencer
Thursday 29 June 2017, 9.30am-1pm, Nielsen Book offices
Whether your aim is to create better AIs, snappy web copy or more successful emails, Richard Spencer (A Thousand Monkeys) will send you back to work with a head full of useful tips and techniques to boost sales. In each of the modules, Richard will take examples of successful copy and explain how the techniques could work for publishing. At every step of the way, you’ll get hands-on practice writing using the various techniques.
Bookings & Venue information
All workshops are priced at £65 for BMS members // £120 for non-members
Venue Address:
Nielsen Book
5th floor, Endeavour House
189 Shaftesbury Ave
London WC2H 8JR
BMS Marketing all-day & Primer returns 24 May 2017
BMS comprehensive and intensive all-day BMS Primer workshop for book marketers is back on Wednesday 24 May.
Targeted at those in the early years of their career, as well as those hoping to join the industry or just wanting a refresher. The full day offers an in-depth overview of book marketing, with new insights and the latest thinking around campaigns, available tools and resources.
Featuring a breakout session where participants will get the chance to to create their own marketing campaign working with others across the industry.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Matt Haslum (Consumer Marketing Director, Faber)
- Steve Bohme (Research Director, Nielsen Book Research)
- Katie Roden (Content, publishing and marketing strategy consultant)
- Julia Kingsford (Director, Kingsford Campbell Marketing)
- Jon Hibbit (SEO Analyst, SiteVisibility)
- Richard Spencer (Creative Director, A Thousand Monkeys)
- Lucy Upton (Marketing Director, Hachette Children’s)
- Penny Took (Managing Director, Total Media)
- Suzy Carter-Kent (Customer Success Manager, Adestra)
- Lucy Howkins (Marketing Director, Hodder & Stoughton)
- Tory Lyne-Pirkis (Associate Director, Midas PR)
Sessions will include:
- How does book marketing fit into the 2017 consumer landscape
- How to plan and evaluate a campaign
- Targeting your audience
- Email marketing and segmentation
- Get the most out of working with authors
- How to make the most of your (often non-) advertising budget
- The importance of good SEO, and how it can boost visibility and drive sales
- Writing compelling copy that will stand out
- Social media do’s and don’ts – being creative and getting the basics right
Tickets are limited and will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
WHEN: Wednesday 24 May 2017, 9.30am-5.30pm (registration from 9am)
LOCATION Nielsen offices, 66 Porchester Rd, London W2 6ET (map)
COST: BMS members & students £125 / Non-members £199 (includes lunch and end-of-day drinks)
SPECIAL MULTI-BUY OFFER:
Buy one full-priced ticket, get the second and third ticket at half price per each
For example, for BMS members:
3 tickets = 1 ticket @ £125 + 2 tickets @ £62.50 each = total £250 (save £125)
6 tickets = 2x £250 + 2x £62.50 = total £500 (save £250)
or for non-BMS members:
3 tickets = 1x £199 + 2x £99.50 = total £398 (save £199)
Bookings
Without strong visuals everything becomes more forgettable, audience hears at annual BMS/PPC book fair gathering
by Sue Stephens
The Publishers Publicity Circle and Book Marketing Society joint event at the London Book Fair was absolutely packed and this year the subject was The Visual Life of Campaigns. Thanks to everyone who came – you can see the conversations around the event on #visualcampaigns but some brief notes below if you weren’t able to attend:
Preena Gadher chaired (MD and co-founder of the award-winning arts and culture communications agency Riot Communications), leading first onto…
Jack Smyth (a designer from Dublin who has worked in-house and freelanced for Little, Brown Book Group, Tower Records, Wagamama and Cath Kidson amongst others. He currently designs book jackets for Simon and Schuster)
Jack addressed visual language and how we can bring our books to life using visual techniques. He had particular concerns about how we often tend to create our own camouflage.
Jack states that nobody wins in this scenario and that we lose ingenuity, fun and sense of experimentation; it’s creating an environment which is incredibly difficult to navigate around. He also takes exception to pack shots.
Packshots are on virtually all book advertising. This says we are selling a product when what we really should be doing is selling a story. We don’t need to shout; be more brave, be more subtle – be more inventive. We don’t need to give all of the information: there needs to be a bit of mystery to make people want to find out more. There is obviously sometimes merit in riding a market that is newly created to benefit from a cultural phenomenon, but these tend to have a lifespan and then: how do you go beyond that? What you can do is just take a small divergent path to create something entirely new.
Jon Slack (presenting for Naomi Bacon, freelancer and co-director of a consultancy specialising in Marketing, PR, Social Media, and Creative Strategy)
The Power of Pop-ups and immersive events
Visual campaigns can take many forms, Naomi refers to ways in which events can make a difference. She encourages everyone to create events that you yourself would like to go to. We’re all used to a glass of warm wine in a bookshop for a launch and this has its place and will attract the usual book crowd.
But to bring in a wider readership, make more use of partnerships – not just drink sponsorship but lifestyle brands that might be able to create a launch that appeals to a different set of people such as the art, fashion or music crowd.
Two examples that she pointed to were the launch she organised for The Muse; as well as focusing on the book, the event included poetry and discussions, and allowed for shareable content through Snapchat filters and Instagram cards.
And the amazing launch at the Hackney Empire for debut author Robyn Travis – read more about the event here
Julia Kingsford (co-founder of Kingsford Campbell, a literary agency and marketing and publishing consultancy launched in 2014. Prior to this, she was Marketing Director at Foyles before helping found the reading for pleasure charity World Book Night and becoming its CEO in 2011. Julia has also worked at Random House, the BBC and the Barbican).
Julia talked about the smallest and simplest ways in which you can create visual engagement. There are some brilliant online tools that anyone can easily use to make a difference visually. Julia wrote a great blog piece afterwards read here about her presentation and, inspired by the subject, says she will be doing a workshop in the near future with the BMS (stay tuned!)
The big mistake that many make is not to be aware of the space in the timeline when tweeting an image. So you can get unintentional results… an unfortunate example below:
A way to avoid this is to make more use of quote cards and respect the safe space:
Also, to be aware that what really engages is emotion:
Make the audience engage and want to know more:
Experiment with video by creating enchanting visuals through stop motion and BookTubers.
GIFs allow for the life of a book and its marketing campaign to be extended by generating conversations around it.
Find good tools and utilize them, such as Pablo and Stop Motion Studio.
Analyse social media data and decide whether your content should be driving impressions or engagement.
Key Takeaways:
- avoid the camouflage
- sell the story not the product
- be more brave – don’t need to give all of the information, create elements of mystery, less SHOUTING
- cropping – think about the safe space
- events – don’t just target the book crowd, find elements that have a wider appeal and create new environments for new audiences
- ‘immersive’ is a bit overused but create events you would like to go to – Hackney Empire for debut author Robyn Travis – read here
- make it more than the sum of its parts
- visual storytelling
- make use of online tools such as Pablo to create more shareable images
You can link to Naomi Bacon’s slides here
and download a copy of the event’s full presentation.
(thanks to Siobhan Rothwell for her notes contributing to this report)
Why email marketing really does sell books (and 21 other things to think about while we’re at it)
In a recent post on Twitter, marketing whiz and self-declared ‘book champion’ Sam Missingham shared a full suite of her own #bookmarketingtips for the great and the good to share widely. We brought them together for you here, because we’re nice like that.
- Email marketing sells books. Build an email list. Then use it properly (more than once a month).
- BookBub sells books by the shedload – if you can get your book(s) on there, it’s 100% worth the money.
- Put some effort into the design of your emails (most are ghastly). Please, please, please optimise for mobile!
- If people never click on your emails, delete them. Then segment the remaining to optimise open & click through rates.
- Every other industry in the world uses email marketing at the heart of their activity. They don’t do that for fun. It works.
- Every single book marketing campaign should have at least two data capture opportunities (most have none).
- Competitions will return the worst quality data. They are also lazy (although we all do them). Think bigger.
- More generally, if you have no idea where to start with marketing, look very closely at the activity of similar authors.
- Things you should look at – their social feeds, website, email newsletter and the categories they choose on Amazon.
- Authors – your website should work for you. What one thing would you like a visitor to do? Sign up? Download free book?
- You DO NOT need a big budget to do great book marketing. You need ideas, time and energy.
- If you don’t believe 11. let me list the books with big budgets that didn’t sell.
- Facebook offers extraordinary targeting with paid-for ads. Follow @pbackwriter and learn how – look at his courses.
- Never, ever waste money on a book trailer. They DO NOT sell books.
- Social media sells books (nowhere near as well as email) but you should choose social channels you can use properly.
- Do not spread yourself across all social channels and do them all badly. Choose two or three and put energy and time into.
- Not sure what to prioritise? Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads would be my top three. But, different genres work different channels.
- Wherever you choose to focus your social energy, you must commit and engage regularly.
- Working with book bloggers, booktubers and bookstaggramers. Yes, do this. A lot. Use this army of book champions.
- Blog tours work and will reach the most concentrated audience of book-lovers of all of your marketing.
- Encouraging readers to talk about your book as early and as much as possible is key. Georgina Moore (@PublicityBooks) is a master at this.
- If you are worried that someone is ripping you off with secret marketing sauce and trying to get you to spend money, DON’T!
Think you have others to add, or disagree? Join the discussion with Sam back on Twitter or let us know in the comments below.
Winter Season Campaign Award winners
The Award winners for the all-important Christmas season, encompassing campaigns run between September and December 2016, were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s member meeting on 17th February, held at HarperCollins’ offices. With nearly half of all consumer book purchases taking place in the period, many being bought as Christmas gifts, there were some major titles jostling for the Awards.
The Guerrilla Marketing category (campaigns costing less than £2.5k)
- Jodie Mullish and Jessica Farrugia of Bluebird/Pan Macmillan received a Highly Commended for their campaign for their take on the current obsession, How to Hygge with a curated Hygge Weekend.
- The Winner’s laurel went to Aimee Kitson of Constable/Little, Brown Book Group for her exemplary campaign to promote Ian Wright’s latest autobiography, A Life in Football, with great success.
The Children’s category
- Highly Commended for Hannah Sidorjak of PRHC for her cat-lead promotion for the newly discovered Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, illustrated by Quentin Blake.
- Highly
Commended for Hannah Bourne and Andrea Bowie of Puffin for their crumpet-rich campaign for Tom Fletcher’s The Christmasaurus.
- The winning campaign was for another YouTuber star, DanTDM and his book Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal, which Anna Bowen of Trapeze/Orion lead to success with effective promotions around the author tour and an online Top Trumps game which achieved over 1 million plays in the first 48 hours.
The Adult Non-Fiction category
- Rose Poole of Viking/PRH received a Highly Commended for impressing the judges with her stylish work on Ben Macintyre’s SAS Rogue Heroes.
- Katie Bowden of Michael Joseph/PRH was also awarded a Highly Commended for her highly targeted campaign for the GCHQ Puzzle Book.
- The Winner in this extremely strong category was Paul Martinovic of Penguin/Viking for his hugely successful campaign for John le Carre’s autobiography, The Pigeon Tunnel – only a year after the biography, and without any personal promotion from the author himself.
The Multi-title Campaign category
- The team from Pan Macmillan (Katie Roden, Sara Lloyd, Lee Dibble, Tom Noble, Sophie Painter and Eleanor Jones) received a Highly Commended for wowing the judges with their ambitious and technically challenging digital-first campaign to encourage gift book buying, Wrapped with Love Campaign 2016.
- The first of the joint Winners were Alice Morley and Fleur Clarke at Hodder & Stoughton, who put together an impressive day of online events to celebrate Stephen King’s birthday and 8 very different backlist titles in King for the Day.
- The second winning campaign was by Bethan Ferguson and Jeska Lyons of Quercus Books who achieved tremendous success with their highly targeted campaign
for Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups, complete with a specially commissioned short story Five Go Bookselling to gain trade buy-in.
The Adult Fiction category
- Hannah Gamon and Katie Moss of HarperFiction were Highly Commended for their campaign for The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, full of terrible puns and 12 sheet displays at EWEston, BAAAmondsey, LiverWOOL Street – you get the picture!
- The Winners in this category were Vickie Boff and Fleur Clarke of Hodder & Stoughton for their strategic reinvention of Jodi Picoult with an anonymize campaign #readwithoutprejudice for Small Great Things.
Nine things we learned at the BMS Masterclass on backlist marketing
by James Spackman
Marketers should learn to write like booksellers talk. Caroline Maddison and Claire Wilshaw, creators of the #ByBook multi-title campaign, channeled their inner retailers to persuasively recommend books on their site. The difference to conventional book blurb is striking…
A hashtag is a better listening device than broadcasting tool, said Justine Gold, ex of Little, Brown, in relation to the I [heart] Atwood campaign. If your message is clear and shareable, you don’t necessarily need a hashtag.
A novel is like a plate of food. Inspired by Zainab Juma at Penguin, Caroline Maddison suggested describing books as though they were dishes (ingredients, flavours, size, etc). An extremely handy idea, which I think we will all steal.
… by the same token, Mills & Boon novels are bars of chocolate to their readers, according to Emma Pickard. An indulgent treat that they absolutely know will be enjoyable.
A little Facebook ad spend goes a long way if you’re very specific indeed with your keywords, said Justine Gold and Rachel Wilkie.
Programming Nostalgia is a thing. Matthew Young, designer at Penguin and one of three creators of their groundbreaking Richard Dawkins anniversary campaign, told us that people’s fond memories of obsolete code (Dawkins’ evolution modeler) was a crucial PR draw.
Adopting readers’ vocabulary from their Amazon reviews is a useful shortcut to get just the right voice for a campaign (Caroline and Claire again).
Three is the magic number: designer + programmer + marketer = stunning backlist campaign. That’s how the Dawkins campaign was created, and Matthew Young thought the three-person, three-specialism dynamic was crucial to its success.
The physical presence of books is a powerful draw. The #ByBook video used giant books, being carried, held, used, by human beings. Not so much glorifying the object, but showing it in use.
Spackman also rounded up learnings from the first Spackman masterclass breakfast on marketing adult titles in ‘Nine things we learned at the BMS Marketing Masterclass‘.
Follow us on X
Receive our newsletter
Sign up to our newsletter for all the latest BMS updates, events, job notices and industry news.
Join us on Facebook
All BMS Members are entitled to sign up to the BMS Facebook group and join our online community of book marketers.
The group is the best way to be in know about our events, hear about our promotions and ask other BMS members for advise.