Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

A Very Long Engagement: 

how the new publishing landscape 

is changing the way we promote books 

BY KELLY FAGAN 

On Behalf of the Unwin Trust 2013 

Author: Kelly Fagan

Contents 

Overview 01 

Research and Methodology 02 

Key Findings 03 

The Australian Retail Space 05 

The Australian Media Space 06 

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures (Australia) 07 

The UK Retail Space 09 

The UK Media Space 10 

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures (UK) 12 

The Evolution of Marketing and Publicity Strategy 14 

The Evolution of Marketing and Publicity Activities 15 

What Does it Mean to Connect Directly with Consumers 21 

Focus on Branding 22 

Focus on Events 23 

Focus on Connecting Directly with Readers Online 24 

Cross-industry Collaboration 25 

Conclusion 27 

Acknowledgements 28 

Author: Kelly Fagan 

B

Overview 

With book marketing, everything has changed. We are now in the uncomfortable middle of not knowing 

what will work or what that even means. We don’t know. An uncomfortable middle needs then to be a 

time of great fear leading to passionate experimentation. The genetically-quotable Clay Shirky put it best 

when he said ‘Nothing will work. Everything might’. 

Kevin Shockey, O’Reilly Media 

Marketing and publicity for books has long been a subject of debate. 

The original proposal for this fellowship report was to research the role of marketing and publicity in a new, 

increasingly digitised publishing landscape. The scope of this project, and the issues at its heart, are vast. The very 

reason marketing and publicity is often called into question is that it is daunting, if not near impossible, to quantify 

their efficacy and relevancy with sheer numbers. 

Until recently most trade publishers have operated with a marketing department focused largely on retailer promotions 

and mass communication and a publicity department charged with promoting a book through traditional media 

channels and author tours that engage with readers directly. Today’s rapidly changing retail environment paired with 

continual consolidation of the traditional media, however, has challenged the way trade publishers have historically 

communicated with their readers forcing a re-evaluation of marketing and publicity roles within many of the major 

Australian houses. 

The rise of social media and direct digital marketing has afforded the industry the unprecedented opportunity 

to circumvent traditional media and speak directly to their consumers. The challenge now is how to market and 

publicise books effectively to an increasingly fragmented audience in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner 

across genres and retail spaces. In 2010, the Australian Government established the Book Industry Strategy 

Group (BISG) ‘to identify the key priority issues for addressing the need for structural change across the industry 

supply chain and to recommend appropriate actions to be taken to meet emerging challenges’. Among the key 

recommendations from the group was ‘to improve industry skills in marketing and communications’. 

This report aims to examine the more advanced UK book trade, and discuss how publishers there, are tackling 

the challenges associated with marketing and publicising books in a digitised world. Originally I had hoped to be 

able to perform some kind of empirical analysis on traditional marketing and publicity activities; however several 

things made this near impossible to achieve. Firstly, as with other Unwin Fellows before me, I found it impossible 

to organise an interview with Amazon, UK publishing’s largest customer. Without being able to speak directly to 

buyers and merchandisers within Amazon, it is almost impossible to measure the effect of marketing and publicity 

at a retail level. Compounding this issue was the reluctance of those people within publishing companies who sell 

to Amazon to talk about their processes. Furthermore, I found that looking at sales data on UK Bookscan (which 

doesn’t take into account e-book sales) also did not give an accurate picture of the performance of a particular title, 

and again publishers were especially careful around what information they would divulge with regards to e-book 

sales of particular titles. 

Due to these limitations, the report focuses mainly on the promotional strategies and activities of trade publishers – 

their value and also the ways in which they are changing. It should be noted that this report is primarily concerned 

with what I have called traditional marketing and publicity activities. Whilst some of my research did lead me to the 

new and very interesting areas of pricing and meta-data these activities still tend to fall outside the brief of trade 

marketing and publicity departments. 

With this in mind, I’ve identified what I hope are key areas of interest to Australian publishers (particularly marketers 

and publicists): comparing retail and media spaces between the two territories; looking at department structures; 

analysing the evolution of marketing and publicity strategy and activities within trade publishing houses; and 

attempting to answer the question of what it means for a publisher to connect directly with a consumer. 


1

Research and Methodology 

Face-to-face interviews were the main source of research for this report. Before traveling to the United Kingdom in 

May 2013, I spoke to many people involved with book promotion in Australia about their roles and how or if they 

were changing. The aim was to establish a ‘book promotional state of play’ to help identify areas of interest to the 

Australian industry which I could then use to establish a framework for the rest of the project. 

Once arriving in the UK, meetings were set up with both independent and multi-national publishing houses including 

Faber & Faber, Jonathan Cape and Bodley Head (divisions of Penguin Random House), Pan Macmillan, Allen & 

Unwin UK, Atlantic Books, Profile Books, Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. 

I attended the Hay Festival and the Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. I went to signings in High 

Street bookstores and author events run by bookshops and by publishers. I spoke to literary editors, journalists, 

statisticians, and freelance marketers. 

I also attended a number of cross industry conferences and happenings including: 

▪ ▪ Independent’s Day talks program run by The Independent Alliance of Publishers in partnership with the ICA 

▪ ▪ The Authors Awards 

▪▪ 

The Women’s Prize and meetings held by The Publishers Publicity Circle and The Book Marketing Society. 

HarperCollins were kind enough to give me a desk in their Hammersmith offices for my stay in London and I did 

base myself there spending time with the International Sales and Marketing teams, Harper Fiction and Non-Fiction 

and Fourth Estate teams. That said, the views in this report, unless otherwise stated, are my own and do not 

represent the views of HarperCollins. 

Also, it should be noted that whilst much of the information presented in this report was gathered directly from 

interviews and experiences, I have also used information from trade press, government reports, media articles and 

blogs where appropriate to enhance my own research. 


2

Key Findings 

1. Differences/similarities Between Australian and UK Retail Spaces 

Although our bricks and mortar market is still considerably healthier and more sizeable than the UK’s, Australian 

publishers have nonetheless seen and responded to the changing international landscape and have been reaching 

out to consumers directly, both online and through our vibrant festival culture. 

Despite the shrinkage in High Street retail and the dominance of Amazon, UK publishers remain committed to 

servicing all sectors of the retail market – physical bookstores have not been forgotten. 

2. Media Spaces 

In both Australia and the UK, traditional media is still key to selling books. Though both territories are experiencing a 

reduction in book-dedicated real estate in the mainstream press, Australia definitely fares the worst of the two with 

regards to the visibility and treatment of books in the media. 

Australians by nature are much more attuned to international media content and regularly consume international 

newspapers such as The Daily Mail, Guardian or New York Times. As such, the knock-on effect of overseas reviews 

can be an excellent launch pad for international titles distributed in Australia. Comparatively, UK readers are highly 

engaged with their own press and the UK press in turn, is very connected to its readers. 

Ranked as people’s third favourite pastime in the UK (after TV and the internet), books and reading remain a highly 

visible part of British culture, whereas the same is not as strongly the case in Australia. 

3. Company Structures 

Continuing the theme of the earlier two findings, Australian publishing is more outward-facing than the UK. Australian 

publishers’ focus, particularly in the bigger houses, is divided between being a content creator (local lists) and 

account management (UK lists and US lists) and the distribution of all those books. Perhaps because of this, 

we have been quicker to streamline our processes and merge publicity and marketing departments than our UK 

colleagues. 

Based on what I witnessed in the UK, there is still a place for discrete marketing and publicity roles within a ‘Marcomms 

department’. Merging of departments in both Australia and the UK seems to be more about restructuring resources 

at a managerial level as opposed to any huge changes in the way both disciplines go about their day-to-day roles. 

That said, because of online and social media components, traditional marketing roles are definitely expanding in 

scope and evolving a little faster than roles in publicity. 

4. Marketing and Publicity Strategy and Activity 

I went to the UK expecting to find examples of highly experimental or revolutionary marketing campaigns, and was 

surprised to find that most campaigns were very much centred around what we would call ‘traditional activities’ – 

Tube sampler campaigns, outdoor advertising, national book tours, events and festival appearances all dominated 

the promotional landscape in the UK. 

The biggest change to marketing and publicity from what I can see is the expectation of what promotional activities 

need to achieve for a publishing house. Return on investment is not just about sales – it’s about gathering data, 

creating brands and author networking, and building communities and online presence. The introduction of digital 

to the marketing mix is not simply a matter of employing one person to tweet and update facebook occasionally; it’s 

about using digital to enhance or amplify the tried and tested methods of promotion. 

I visited many publishers and asked all of them if they could think of a completely digital campaign, with no traditional 

activity whatsoever, that resulted in strong sales of a book. No-one could give me an example. Of course there are 

a handful of successful authors who have pioneered self-publishing across the web to bestseller-dom, but even 

then, the sales of authors such as E.L. James were considerably amplified once the mainstream promotional and 

publicity machine kicked in. 


3

Key Findings (cont.) 

The other significant difference that should be highlighted is the timing of a campaign. The two format style of print 

publishing employed by most publishers in the UK, whereby the hardback and e-book are released at the same time 

followed by a paperback release six to twelve months later, can be quite advantageous in the new digital landscape. 

Many publishers treat the first release almost like a sampler campaign – with promotional activity centred around the 

acquisition of reviews, reviews, and more reviews. Independent reviews from the mainstream press of course, but 

also, consumer reviews from places like Amazon and GoodReads. 

In many ways it’s like road testing a book before committing to a full promotional spend for the paperback. A recent 

example of this in action is The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Acquired in a storm of publicity at the Frankfurt 

Book Fair, the book was first published in hardback in April 2013. The book was praised in the press, and hailed 

by several media outlets as the next Gone Girl. The hardback received almost 200 reviews on Amazon, a quarter 

of which were 5-star reviews. In August 2013, HarperCollins published the paperback complete with a widespread 

advertising campaign. Posters, outdoor and press ads all featured the book and the tag-lines ‘This summer’s Gone 

Girl’ (a quote from India Knight) and ‘Got a Gone Girl shaped hole in your life Try this’ (a quote from the Evening 

Standard). Lauren did a British publicity tour, and the book went to number one on the bestseller lists. 

Of course, with a shrinking second format market, we in Australia rarely have the luxury of a two print format release, 

but it is definitely worth noting that as online retail becomes an ever increasing part of our market – it may not always 

be necessary or wise to spend a title’s entire promotional budget up front. 

5. Industry Bodies 

Finally, in this new and evolving world of merged departments and changing roles, professional bodies such as the 

Book Marketing Society and Publishers’ Publicity Council are like an oasis for like-minded professionals. Learnings 

are shared, experiences discussed and particularly for junior members of staff, interactions with industry experts are 

hugely valuable. 


4

The Australian Retail Space 

In Australia in early 2013, bookshops were closing at a rate of one per week. In 2012, some two hundred accounts 

with an annual value to the market of $10,000 and over closed. Some of Australia’s oldest and most respected book 

stores have been forced to downsize to smaller more affordable retail premises in order to survive, and in Melbourne 

two local bookstores launched public appeals for support so that they could keep their doors open until Christmas. 

When I left for the UK, it was amidst reports from Nielsen Bookscan that sales through Australian bookshops in 2012 

had dropped a huge 9.3% in value; that discount department store Target would no longer employ a book buyer; 

and that in general the past twelve months were seen as ‘one of the toughest years in the trade in a long time’. 1 And 

then there were Those Amazon Rumours. 2 

Australia source of purchase 2012 volume share % 3 

Dymocks 

12% 

QBD 

5% 

Collins 

3% 

ABC Shops 

3% 

Newslink 

3% 

DDS 

19% 

Others 

16% 

Leading Edge 

11% 

Department stores 

3% 

Amazon 

6% 

Specials 

13% 

Other online 

6% 

Combined e-book and hard-copy book purchases made online in Australia (by volume) currently sit at 13%. Modest 

predictions see this rising to approximately 35% over the next four years – more if Amazon opens a fully-functioning 

.au shop front. Locally, our two largest online retailers, Booktopia and the Pearson-owned Bookworld, are reporting 

significant growth year-on-year. Last year saw Bookworld try to capture the Christmas market quite aggressively 

with high-profile print, television and online advertising. 

There’s no longer any doubt that the Australian market is being revolutionised by digital sales and publishing. But does 

this spell doom and gloom for traditional trade publishers ‘Not at all’ argues Stephen Page, CEO of Faber and Faber. 

What’s up for grabs for publishers – in Australia and in the UK – is the significant opportunity to be 

valuable to writers and readers at a time of great change. 4 

1 http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspxtype=item&id=25903 

2 http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/cloud/amazon-lands-in-australia-20120621-20q6y.html 

3 As reported by Nielsen bookscan, 2012 

4 Face-to-face interview with Stephen Page, CEO Faber and Faber, 12 June, 2013 


5

The Australian Media Space 

In the media sphere, magazines were closing – and not just niche publications. Mainstream women’s magazines, 

such as Grazia and Madison, regularly featured books and authors across their pages. Those that were left, on the 

most part, had less space for books (especially reviews). Vogue magazine, in particular, had previously employed 

a freelance literary editor and ran a dedicated books column and featured several book reviews ceased to do so, 

instead choosing to feature ‘beautiful books on an ad-hoc basis’. 5 

Newspapers too either reduced or combined their coverage of books. The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 

have stopped employing a books editor altogether as did The Canberra Times instead electing to publish reviews 

commissioned elsewhere in their respective groups. The Sydney Morning Herald literary editor, Susan Wyndham, 

took over managing pages for the weekday, Saturday and Sunday editions of the paper. Previously there had 

always been a Deputy Literary Editor who would manage the Sun Herald pages. A piece on ‘structural challenges 

in newspaper publishing and their consequences for the book industry’ written by Matthew Ricketson and Sybill 

Nolan for the Sydney Review of Books reports that the pagination of the book section in Saturday’s Sydney Morning 

Herald was almost halved in 2012 to six or seven pages only. The report also highlights the negative impact that this 

reduction in books coverage in the Australian press has had on authors, on publishers and on ‘the national cultural 

conversation’. 6 

Wyndham is blunt about the challenges ahead for publishers when it comes to newspaper coverage for books. 

‘Around 50% of reviews in my pages now come from The Age’ she says. ‘And I cannot see there ever 

being an increase in print space for books again’. 7 

Interestingly, Wyndham also mentions that a recent Sydney Morning Herald readership survey revealed that book 

reviews and features were the second most read pieces in the Spectrum section after film. Wyndham’s book column 

“Undercover’ has finally been published online, as well as in the Saturday print edition of the paper. 

Online media and blogs are, of course, on the rise in Australia too. The Hoopla and Mamamia go some way to filling 

the void left by women’s magazines but we have yet to see online or social media really make or break a book in the 

same way that newspapers and magazines used to. 

When it comes to social media, Australians are both early adopters and heavy users. In August this year, Facebook 

released the following Australian user metrics: 

▪▪ 

12 million monthly active users (desktop and mobile) 

▪▪ 

9 million total daily active users (desktop and mobile) 

▪▪ 

9.8 million mobile monthly active users (mobile only) 

▪▪ 

7.3 million mobile daily active users (mobile). 

These figures confirm Facebook as the biggest social media site in Australia. 8 

Facebook is used in publishing in Australia both as an advertising medium and as a way for publishers and authors 

to converse easily and inexpensively with readers – but to what effect 

5 Face-to-face interview with former freelance Vogue Books Editor, Jeanne Ryckmans, 20 May, 2013 

6 http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/parallel-fates-2/ 

7 Face-to-face interview with Susan Wyndham, Literary Editor Sydney Morning Herald 11 November, 2013 

8 http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-checked-by-9-million-australians-every-day-20130820-2s7wo.html#ixzz2lZHjxnkA 


6

An Australian book consumer benchmarking study conducted by Thorpe Bowker in October 2012 reveals: 

▪▪ 

one-in-six book buyers say they discover books via general social media sites, over 80% use social media sites at 

all, rising to over 90% among book buyers under 25. 

▪▪ 

Two thirds of book buyers use Facebook, and one-in-seven use Twitter, with 60% using either of these at least 

weekly. However, more book buyers use YouTube (35%), GumTree (23%) or GooglePlus (20%) than Twitter. 

▪▪ 

Use of Facebook rises to over 70% of female book buyers, 18–24 year olds and those using an e-reader for their 

e-books, while the use of Twitter and YouTube is higher among male than female book buyers, and those reading 

e-books on a tablet as opposed to an e-reader. 9 

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures 

(Australia) 

The initial catalyst for my fellowship application was primarily a selfish one: I was ‘marcommed’. 

In late 2012, HarperCollins Australia announced a restructure in its marketing and publicity departments. At the time, 

CEO James Kellow said that HarperCollins had decided to merge its publicity and marketing divisions under the title 

of marketing communications as ‘the distinction between traditional publicity and marketing has disappeared, and 

both teams are now engaged in one mission’. He said the brief for the marketing communications team ‘will be to 

ensure that we are speaking to our readers, whether directly, through traditional media, new media, electronically or 

in print, with one consistent and trusted voice’. 11 

The announcement was cause for much discussion. What did this actually mean In house, those in ‘publicity’ 

wondered if they would soon be planning poster campaigns. Those in ‘marketing’ were suddenly pale faced at 

the thought of accompanying an author on tour or cold calling journalists to try and drum up promotion. Across 

the Australian trade, big players including Random House, Pan Macmillan and Hachette all announced similar 

restructures to their marketing and publicity teams. Hardie Grant Egmont managing director, Natasha Besliev, 

went as far as to say that ‘the “traditional” publicity function will not be a focus of our marketing strategies’ when 

announcing her company’s restructure. 12 Not so at Allen & Unwin where separate marketing and publicity teams still 

exist. Publicity Director, Andy Palmer, says that ‘it is true that we work very closely with our marketing department, 

but the nature of Allen & Unwin’s list is such that our authors benefit very much from a dedicated publicity team’. 13 

At Simon & Schuster, the structure has always been to employ combined marketing and publicity managers. The 

team is small and the nature of their list makes it possible for personnel to work across the entire promotional 

process from sell-in to sell through. 

Some (but not all) of these restructures led to high-profile redundancies and resulted in people with decades of 

experience, expertise and contacts leaving publishers and, in a few cases, leaving the industry altogether. 

The retail and media data presented above certainly supports a case for change. It has become abundantly clear 

that publishers need to communicate directly with readers. But what is the makeup of the new ‘MarComms’ 

department Is it as simple as teams working closer together 

9 Source: Thorpe Bowker Australian Book Consumer in 2012 for Subscribers (supplied with the cooperation of Jo Henry) 

10 http://www.idealog.com/blog/book-marketers-need-rethink-three-things-time-timing-budgeting/ 



13 Face-to-face interview with Andy Palmer, Publicity Director, Allen&Unwin, 18 April, 2013 


7

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures (Australia) (cont.) 

I put this question to Simon Milne, who managed the restructure of HarperCollins Australia’s marketing and 

communications team: 

One of the first things I did when I joined HarperCollins was to integrate the marketing and publicity 

teams into a vertical structure – Fiction, Non-fiction, Children’s and ABC Books. Bringing marketing and 

publicity together has improved our working processes and integrated our brand positioning across 

print, digital, retail, social and the media. I believe this vertical structure has also enhanced the energy, 

creativity and fun we bring to our marketing communication campaigns. 14 

After nearly 12 months of working within this structure I can see that there is undoubtedly a fertile overlap between 

consumer marketing and traditional book publicity. Book publicists are naturally attuned to market segments 

and demographics, and very used to quickly developing relationships and partnerships. That said, I have to be 

honest and say that individually my day-to-day activities have not changed very much at all. I still find myself largely 

communicating with traditional media and with booksellers. My marketing colleagues are still producing point-ofsale 

campaigns and outdoor advertising campaigns. Marketers still market; publicists still publicise and despite all of 

the noise about communicating directly with readers, much of the change from what I can see here is still happening 

at a budgetary and managerial level. 

Nevertheless, change is part of our future and, across the board, all of the marketers and publicists I spoke to in 

Australia before leaving for the UK were keen to experiment and passionate about finding new and inventive ways 

to promote books and authors here. What skills do we need to turn ourselves outward and face readers directly 

And what parts of traditional roles are still valid in this new landscape 

14 Email interview with Simon Milne, Marketing and Communications Director HarperCollins Australia, 31 October, 2013 


8

The UK Retail Space 

When I approached the Unwin Trust with the proposal to research the changing nature of book promotion in the 

UK, it was with only a vague understanding of Britain’s more advanced market. I knew that readers in the UK had 

long embraced the discounts afforded by online retailing, and that Amazon was the largest account for most, if not 

all publishers there. I hoped that by now, publishers had developed more specific strategies about how to market 

books in such a climate. 

UK source of purchase 2012 volume share % 15 

Internet-only retailer 

37% 

Chain bookshop 

28% 

Independent 

bookshop 

3% 

Book club/direct seller 

5% 

Other non-specialist shop 

8% 

Bargain bookshop 

13% 

Supermarket 

13% 

In fact, Amazon controls 37% of the UK market (combined p and e-book sales by volume) and up to 80% (depending 

on who you talk to) of e-book sales. 

Like Australia, in the UK there is still very much a climate of high street closures and uncertainty around the management 

and survival of chain stores in the UK. Independent bookshops make up a mere 3% of the market and, in London 

particularly, those that have survived offer bespoke and additional services such as gift subscriptions, author talks, 

specialist collections and of course coffee and refreshments to attract and keep a loyal and local customer base. 

Despite the presence of bookstores continuing to shrink, the invoiced value of UK publisher sales of books rose 4% 

in 2012 to £3.3bn with a 66% increase in digital sales offsetting a 1% decrease in physical book sales. Digital sales 

now represent 12$ of UK publishers’ total digital and physical book sales. 16 

“Amazon has always been strong in the UK market,” says Bowker’s Jo Henry. “These trends are not really showing 

just how much the chains have been suffering.” 

Henry adds that other Bowker data shows that UK ebook buyers who buy their ebooks from Amazon tend to shift 

their print-book buying to Amazon, too. “That is an added threat to the high-street bookseller...” 17 

15 Source: Thorpe Bowker UK ‘Books & Consumers’, October 2013 

16 Source: PA Statistics Yearbook 2012, The Publishers Association, 2013 

17 http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/e-retailers-now-accounting-for-nearly-half-of-book-purchases-by-volume/ 


9

The UK Media Space 

Traditional media is still key to selling books in the UK. 

Anecdotally, two Amazon account managers for multi-national publishers cited reviews and features in traditional 

press as a key factor in driving both sales and reader reviews through their accounts. 

‘Other than price promotion, reporting mainstream publicity is the best thing I can do to attract attention 

from the people I deal with’ said one. 18 

Even the highly experimental and very digital, The Wasteland app, published by Faber in 2011 relied heavily on 

traditional print publicity to generate sales and awareness. 

‘It was actually a four-page feature in The Times that really got things moving.’ 19 

For a media-consuming, information-hungry Australian publicist, the media landscape in the UK seemed huge and 

vibrant. The multitude of newspapers to choose from online, and in print; the selection of papers and magazines for the 

commute and women’s magazines that actually appraised books instead of barely featuring blurbs and covers – for 

a wide-eyed outsider, the opportunities for book promotion seemed endless. 

Of course, this is a superficial view that doesn’t take into account London’s much larger and diverse population. 

In addition, newspapers are reportedly in a similar, if not worse, predicament in the UK as they are in Australia. 

In fact, whilst I was visiting the UK, my meeting with The Times chief literary editor and critic, Erica Wagner, was 

cancelled due to her sudden departure from the paper. At the same time, the arts coverage in The Independent on 

Sunday was in question after a series of high profile redundancies at that paper. 20 

Despite the decline in print media, books generally in the UK seem to get good coverage. Perhaps this is because, 

as the Deliottes 2013 Media Consumer Survey reports, reading books ranked third, second only to TV and Internet 

use in terms of popularity in terms of people’s media pastimes. 21 

To offer a snapshot of opportunities for books coverage in London, it’s worth looking at the weekly free press to see 

what these publications feature with regards to books and authors. 

The Evening Standard 

Four hardback reviews, three paperback reviews and a bestseller list every week on Thursdays. 

Stylist 

ABC 430,000 (over a million anticipated readers) across UK; regular slot Book Wars two readers speak about two 

books and fight for readers to read them – varies from fiction to cook books and true-life crime; also has a news 

section that regularly features author interviews and fiction extracts. 

Shortlist 

Two to three book reviews a week (generally positive); interested in male-skewed books both non-fiction and 

fiction; picture books; talking points. Readers are men aged 25 to 35; has a distribution of 529,000 (over 1 million 

anticipated readership) across UK. 

The Metro 

One daily book review, a larger book review on Thursdays and ‘Shelf Space’ on Fridays which features three books 

on a theme, for example, travel and crime. Also has an ‘e-reader’ slot where an author recommends three books 

that he/she is reading on an e-reader, and a weekly contemporary author Q&A with five questions. 

18 Face-to-face interview with Amazon account manager (who asked not to be named), 2 July, 2013 

19 Face-to-face interview with Stepehn Page, CEO Faber and Faber, 12 June, 2013 

20 http://www.mhpbooks.com/the-independent-on-sunday-axes-all-of-its-arts-critics/ 

21 http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/tmt/media-industry/media-consumer-survey-2013/ 


10

The UK Media Space (cont.) 

As in Australia, radio is a big and effective medium for book promotion in the UK. Simon Mayo’s Drivetime Radio 2 

Bookclub, airs on BBC Radio 2 and reaches roughly 15.5 million listeners a week – around half male and half female. 

‘Radio 2 loves books and is keen to do more and more with them’ notes the show’s producer Joe Haddow. ‘This 

year one of the big successes was the 1st UK interview with American Sci-Fi author, Hugh Howie on his recently 

published title, WOOL. After being on the show, his book went to No. 5 in the Amazon top 10’ Haddow told the 

Publishers Publicity Council Meeting. 22 

Social media is also big in the UK. Britain has 24 million daily Facebook users, from a population of 63 million 

people. 23 Deloitte’s 2013 Media Consumer Survey found that ‘on average the UK consumer has 240 friends on 

Facebook and undertakes, on average, 3.5 actions on the site each day, where an action is defined as updating their 

status or commenting on or ‘liking’ something. 24 Despite these numbers, publishers in the UK are limited in their use 

of Facebook to talk directly consumers. A quick scan through the Facebook pages of publishers that I visited in the 

UK shows significantly smaller communities than their Australian counterparts. HarperCollins Non-Fiction Associate 

Publisher, Erin Roy, says that for her division at least, Twitter is king. ‘Our “brands” in non-fiction here, are our very 

high profile authors. If we do run a social media campaign, it is usually through Twitter using promoted tweets to 

a specific author’s twitter followers. At the moment, and this is likely to change, general Facebook content is not a 

priority for my non-fiction team.’ 25 Twitter users in the UK have topped 15 million in 2013, an increase of five million 

users from 2012. 26 

It is also worth highlighting the vibrant trade media landscape in the UK. The Bookseller, which publishes weekly 

in print. Online, the bookseller.com provides daily news and comment about the book business, ‘starting at 8am 

with the latest digest of press reports about the publishing sector and financial updates from the City. Regular news 

updates from The Bookseller’s news desk follow throughout the day.’ 25 The site also includes opinion, blogs, author 

profiles; publishing employee spotlights and features about the book business. In addition to this, more publishing 

and book news can be found at through the online daily news service: BookBrunch, and mainstream newspapers 

– especially the Guardian publish stories about and by members of the trade, and articles about publishing trends. 

Books and authors are on TV too. I’ll discuss this in further detail later in the report, in brief: in addition to standard 

breakfast and morning television interview opportunities for authors, writers’ festival events and public author talks 

are regularly simulcast on Sky Arts 2. Author awards feature in TV news bulletins, and some genre specific book 

awards such as Specsavers ITV3/CWA Crime Thriller Awards have partnered with television networks to ensure 

mass media exposure. 

2013 did see the cancellation of Mariella Frostrup’s book show on the Sky Arts network, but this has been quickly 

replaced The Book Show hosted by James Whale to air from November 24 on both Sky and Freesat. 

All this is to say, that, despite a decrease in physical book displays from high street retailers and the like, books 

and reading are still a highly visible part of English culture. This, I believe gives publishers in the UK an incredible 

advantage as they embark on the challenge of connecting directly with readers themselves. 

22 Notes from Publisher Publicity Council meeting, 25 June, 2013 

23 http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-checked-by-9-million-australians-every-day-20130820-2s7wo.html#ixzz2lc6mQwBg 

24 http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/tmt/media-industry/media-consumer-survey-2013/ 

25 Face-to-face interview with Erin Roy, Non-Fiction Associate Publisher, HarperCollins UK, 18 June, 2013 

26 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/10291360/Twitter-claims-15m-active-users-in-the-UK.htmll 

27 http://www.thebookseller.com/about.html 


11

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures (UK) 

‘The media and the market for books are in flux in the age of e-books and Amazon, but publishers still 

have a vital role.’ 28 

In very early 2012 Stephen Page wrote a piece for The Guardian reflecting on the dramatic year that was 2011 in UK 

publishing. He suggested that 2011 ‘may have signaled the beginning of the end of the era of publishers-with-accessto-the-mass-market 

as the dominant model for book publishing’ and goes on to discuss the need for a shift in focus 

– from trade to consumer – in order for publishers to prove their value in the 21 st Century. 

Almost two years after this piece was written, I was interested to see how British publishing houses had implemented 

this change in focus. Was it still largely a discussion about what needed to be done How were promotional departments 

and the positions within them changing Were there new department structures New roles Appointments from 

outside of the industry In what ways were publishers refocusing their marketing and communications 

Faber and Faber were an interesting case study for this. Stephen Page suggested that I spend some time with 

Faber’s new Consumer Marketing Director Matt Haslum in order to understand how the publisher has shifted 

its marketing strategy. Page told me that during the interview process he asked Haslum (who has an extensive 

background in consumer marketing across big media brands such as Sky and TalkTalk) what he knew of the book 

trade. When Haslum admitted his knowledge was limited, Page said, 

‘Good. If I ask you this question again in a year and your answer is still the same, then I will know we’re 

getting somewhere’. 29 

When I meet Matt Haslum mid-June he is putting the finishing touches on Faber and Faber’s new consumer 

marketing team. There has been a reshuffle of existing staff and roles, as well as some new appointments. 

‘Part of what I am trying to do here is to give people an expertise and a focus around different consumer 

groups and that is a fundamental shift in the way that we are looking to market.’ 30 

The team has grown from two generic campaign managers to four consumer marketing managers who are to 

become experts in their assigned lists – Non-Fiction, Fiction and Crime, Arts (poetry, art, rock and pop) and Children’s. 

‘Now that each member of my team has a focus, they can really get inside those consumer groups 

because there is no one “arts consumer”, there is no one “crime consumer”; there are about 15 subsets 

of crime before you start and the question is how do you talk to those different niches, how do you make 

them interested and ultimately buy the book’ 31 

Haslum believes that content marketing is the key to engaging consumer groups and appealing to readers in a 

modern society. To this end he has created a content marketing team, to complement his consumer team. Heading 

this up is Partnerships Editor Hannah Marshall who creates a program of content tailored for retail, media and 

distribution partners ‘that adds value to our books, adds value to our offerings and promotes the Faber brand’. 32 

Marshall is also the content curator for Faber Shop – an online boutique within The Book People website, offering 

direct retail to customers as well as author interviews, articles and competitions. 33 

In addition to this Faber also has a publicity department who feed into both consumer and content teams, but 

maintain a more traditional function. Head of Publicity Anna Pallai says, 

‘We focus largely on our relationships with the media – online and traditional – and with the authors, and I 

think the new marketing structure will allow us to do this even more effectively, to really focus on our authors.’ 34 

28 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/13/way-ahead-publishing-ebooks-stephen-page 


30 Face-to-face interview with Matt Haslum, Consumer Marketing Director Faber and Faber, 17 June, 2013 



33 http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplaycategoryId=122209&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100 

34 Face-to-face interview with Anna Pallai, Head of Publicity Faber and Faber, 17 June, 2013 


12

Marketing and Publicity Department Structures (UK) (cont.) 

Pan Macmillan also announced a restructure to their marketing and publicity teams in January 2013, bringing 

together the formerly separate marketing and publicity teams and adding ‘an extra layer of “always on” digital 

resource and expertise to ensure we stay ahead of the game in developing our authors and engaging readerships 

through online platforms and social media, email marketing and community development.’ 35 

Sara Lloyd, director of the new communications team says that one of the main goals of the restructure was 

to create a ‘more collaborative, less silo-ed working environment’ 36 for her staff. She insists that the mission of 

‘engaging with readers’ must be a company-wide strategy. 

‘We have established a Reading Group scheme, literally opening our doors to readers to invite them into the 

publishing process; we’ve launched Notebook Sessions, our own brand of creative writing venture in which we 

connect with the aspirational writer that is a feature of so many dedicated readers; we made our Tor list digital 

rights management-free, based on listening to what our readers wanted and daring to experiment and learn by 

doing; we’ve focused on our own web platform, given it a responsive design to make it mobile-friendly, and grown 

our email registrants by over 200%; and we’ve invested in trends insights, social media tools, consumer research, 

search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and the associated training.’ 37 

I ask Lloyd about training and she tells me that she has invested in both ‘up-skilling and cross-training’ existing 

marketers and publicists, so they have a complete arsenal of communications tactics to use when bringing a 

book to the world. New hires (at a coordinator level) are selected on the basis that they have the ‘aptitude and 

disposition to complete both marketing and publicity tasks’. 38 Interestingly, Lloyd has also created a digital publicity 

team, situated within the wider communications team. The group of three (one head and two digital publicists) are 

charged with managing a digital contact database, using online activity to ‘bridge the gap between key campaign 

moments’, and amplifying the traditional media and marketing on social media. Trade marketing at Pan Macmillan 

now happens entirely through the sales team. Lloyd says, 

‘Sales support their own orders, with their own budgets and their own time schedules.’ 39 

HarperCollins have also experimented with some new department structures in their quest to connect directly with 

audiences. The ‘specialist’ structure that Faber have to a degree introduced with marketers working on specific 

lists, rather than across them, has long been a part of the way marketers and publicists work at HarperCollins. The 

company is divided into divisions, with each running as a separate unit. HarperFiction, Harper Non-Fiction & Sports, 

Fourth Estate & William Collins, and Harper Children’s divisions each have their own teams of marketers, publicists, 

and sales staff to service the respective lists. 

In 2012 HarperCollins appointed Barnaby Dawe (formerly marketing director at The Sun and News of the World) to 

the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Hiring Dawe was part of a larger shift in strategy for HarperCollins: ‘Our marketing 

activities have never been more strategically important. We have a fabulous team of marketeers here at HC and I 

believe the creation of this new role will allow them to develop to a new level, as we put the reader more firmly at the 

heart of everything we do,’ 40 said former CEO Victoria Barnsley when the appointment was announced. 

According to Director of People John Athanasiou, the role will oversee direct-to-consumer policy for HarperCollins 

and also provide a ‘centralised focus to divisional teams’. 41 Dawe also aims to streamline processes around ‘briefing, 

placement and creative’ and instill the importance of ‘proximity marketing’ in the team. With this comes a shift in 

marketing spend from trade and outdoor to digital, so the ‘consumer is always one click away from purchase.’ 42 

35 http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/comms-cuddle.html 

36 Face-to-face interview with Sara Lloyd, Digital and Communications Director Pan Macmillan, 31st July, 2013 

37 http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/comms-cuddle.html 



40 http://www.thebookseller.com/news/hc-appoints-news-international-marketer-new-chief-role.html 

41 Face-to-face interview with John Athanasiou, Director of People, HarperCollins UK, 26 June 2013 

42 Face-to-face interview with Barnaby Dawe, Chief Marketing Officer, HarperCollins Publishers, 26 June 2013 


13

The Evolution of Marketing and Publicity Strategy 

Looking at book promotion and the way in which trade publishers are responding to changing market channels it 

seems important to note that this is a process of evolution not revolution. And there are two parts to the process 

– publishers need to evolve their overall strategies concerning marketing objectives and budgeting processes, and 

marketers and publicists need to evolve in terms of the activities they plan to promote books at a title by title level. 

As Mike Shatzkin says in his blog Idealog: 

‘Publishers have a lot to change in the way they do their marketing. We’ve advocated for years that 

publishers look at marketing as an investment, building assets, such as email lists of consumers they 

can reach for free, through their marketing efforts for subsequent use. That works better if the house’s 

marketing efforts are vertical, or audience-centric, which enables repeat efforts to the same people to 

bear fruit.’ 43 

As discussed earlier in this report, many of the UK publishers I visited were implementing or had already implemented 

‘vertical structures’ to varying degrees within their marketing teams in order to target consumer groups and market 

segments more effectively and more regularly. In terms of overall strategy, Sara Lloyd seemed to sum up the 

sentiment of all of publishers I visited when she said: 

‘In trade publishing in particular, publishers tend to think book by book, campaign by campaign, short 

term, short term, short term. I think we’re going to see a trend moving away from book by book campaigns 

to much more, much broader, much deeper ongoing strategies, including online community building 

and brand building, so that you’re not just living or dying by the next book. We’re going to need to have 

businesses that can have a longer term vision than that, and in general there’s going to be a greater focus 

on developing and communicating brands, because in the cross-media landscape that’s what works.’ 44 

With regards to online community building a new study conducted by Bowker Market Research reveals that the 

number of publisher-owned online communities in the US and UK is set to more than double by 2015. The study 

also investigated the rationale and perceived benefits for publishers moving into this arena, revealing that: 

▪▪ 

84% of publishers felt their spending on online communities would increase in the next two years with only 14% 

envisaging expenditure remaining stagnant 

▪▪ 

64% of publishers with online communities were convinced that their investment in this market is already paying 

off and a further 24% believed it would do so in the short term 

▪▪ 

73% of all the publishers interviewed felt that online communities helped or would help them to engage better with 

their audiences 

▪▪ 

72% of trade publishers said they helped or would help to increase direct relationships with customers and 45% 

claimed they provided or would provide good marketing support to sales channels 

▪▪ 

40% of academic and professional publishers said that increasing knowledge and understanding of customers 

was a key benefit, whilst 40% felt increasing content usage was a priority 

Although currently only 16% of all respondents viewed online communities as viable direct sales channels, the 

formats that have benefited most from online community activity are e-books for trade publishers (40%) and online 

resources for academic publishers (67%). 45 

When discussing the findings at the 2013 London Book Fair, Jo Henry, Director, Bowker Market Research, said: 

‘There is a substantial amount of activity going on in this area as publishers seek new ways in which to engage directly 

with their consumers. It is interesting to note that in this survey US publishers were not significantly more advanced 

than UK ones – and that trade publishers appear to be leading the way in developing online communities.’ 46 

43 http://www.idealog.com/blog/book-marketers-need-rethink-three-things-time-timing-budgeting/ 

44 Transcript of Dutch Foundation for Literature 8th International Non-Fiction Conference, 29 January 2011 (courtesy of Peter Collingridge) 

45 http://www.bookmarketingsociety.co.uk/2013/04/publishers-online-communities-set-to-double-by-2015/#coverage 

46 http://www.stm-publishing.com/publishers-online-communities-to-double-by-2015/ 


14

The Evolution of Marketing and Publicity Activities 

There is no doubt that social media and online retail present enormous opportunities when it comes to individual 

promotional campaigns – the ability to target specific consumers with a product and then receive first hand feedback 

about it – means that activity can be better timed, and better measured. But is it 

‘Book marketing is broken’ proclaims Peter Collingridge, formerly of Canongate and co-founder of 

Enhanced Editions and Bookseer. ‘It is not evolving at the rapid speed of other parts of the industry, and 

many campaigns look identical to those 10 or more years ago, relying on PR and big-budget poster 

campaigns.’ 47 

Specific campaign case studies suggest that in part, Collingridge is right – at the Book Marketing Society Campaign 

Awards for January to April 2013, the winning campaigns in each category were all praised for what might be 

considered ‘traditional activity’. 

Winner: Adult category 

GONE GIRL, BY GILLIAN FLYNN 

Marketers: Mark Rusher & Jo Dawson, Orion 

Notes from BMS: This title came over from the US with a head of steam but, as many campaigns 

before it have proven, this doesn’t always translate into success. Gone Girl was an exception. It 

was Mumsnet’s Book of the Month and was instantly identifiable from the striking use of colours 

on a widespread poster campaign. 

Winner: Children’s 

GEEK GIRL, BY HOLLY SMALE 

Marketers: Nicola Way, Hannah Bourne, Abby Tayleure (HarperCollins’ Children’s) 

Notes from BMS: From the aspirational strapline – “Celebrate Your Inner Geek!”, to the 

engaging Geek Girl cover shot competition (get your pic snapped on the cover) at the NEC 

Birmingham Clothes Show, this was a campaign with a lot of energy and plenty of visibility. It 

was promoted in Shout magazine and on radio, and more than 1,500 photos were taken in 

their special photo booth (with glasses provided, of course). It was also the Number 1 debut in 

children’s books to date – a well deserved achievement for this first-time writer. 

Winner: Shoestring budget 

KNACKERED MOTHER’S WINE CLUB 

Marketer: Alice Shortland, Bloomsbury 

Notes from BMS: This book benefited from the genuine engagement of Waterstones booksellers, 

resulting in their voting it the Waterstones Book of the Year 2012; strong targeting of a foodie 

audience which managed to turn restaurant customers into book buyers; great competitions for 

the potential audience, and amazing sales and ROI. 

48 

47 http://www.enhanced-editions.com/blog/2012/02/book-promotion-analytics-and-a-new-marketing-approach-for-publishers/ 

48 http://www.bookmarketingsociety.co.uk/2013/07/gone-girl-geek-girl-win-in-jan-april-2013-bms-campaign-awards/ 


15

The Evolution of Marketing and Publicity Activities (cont.) 

Collingridge believes that the reason campaigns stick so rigidly to these formulas of posters and trade promotion 

is that ‘there is not – nor has there ever been – any empirical understanding of which combination of marketing 

strategy and tactics works.’ 49 To this end Collingridge created Bookseer, ‘a market intelligence service for books’. 

Bookseer captures the real-time data ‘exhaust’ of the web, combines it with promotional information provided by 

the publisher, and builds a picture of the variations in performance of thousands of titles. 

‘Bookseer collects as much information about these books as possible. It captures price on Amazon, 

hourly sales rank, print and e-book sales data (uploaded by the publisher), what is being said about a 

book or author on Twitter, Facebook or in the media, and on the wider web, which marketing is being 

engaged with, the makeup of bestseller charts and so on.’ 50 

I was interested to learn from Collingridge that after early excitement Bookseer failed to gain any real traction 

with UK Publishers – and indeed several marketing managers that I spoke to were either unenthusiastic about its 

usefulness to them or were unaware of its existence altogether. I asked Collingridge via email why he thought this 

was and he listed the following thoughts: 

▪▪ 

Fear: maybe data shows they are bad at their jobs or waste money on stuff that doesn’t work 

▪▪ 

Inertia: change is hard 

▪▪ 

Lack of technical proficiency 

▪▪ 

Lack of data skills 

▪▪ 

Lack of a CEO telling them this is important 51 

From my limited experience in UK, I have to wonder however, if the reason that the service failed to gain traction with 

publishers is cost. That’s not to say that what Collingridge is suggesting here is untrue, just that publishers already 

pay for and have access to data on their campaigns and sales: through Nielsen Bookscan; through marketing and 

media monitoring agencies; through social analytics companies; and, to some extent, through Amazon rankings. 

Whilst the idea of a tool that can pull all of this information into one report does sound appealing, is it worth the cost 

on a campaign by campaign basis My suspicion is that publishing houses are already looking into the creation of 

such reports in-house, and so were reluctant to take on the extra spend. 

So is a poster campaign in 2013 the same as a poster campaign ten years ago, as Collingridge asserts Sara Lloyd 

says not: 

‘Where marketing does remain in more traditional media, from broadcast to outside to print media and 

so on, digital features are going to become included in all of these areas. Digital elements such as QR 

codes or digital tagging, calls to action online, call-outs for digital channels will all become part of the 

campaign. And they are becoming part of the campaign where I work.’ 52 



51 Email interview with Peter Collingridge, Publishing Entrepreneur, 9th November 2013 



16


Certainly a closer look at the award-winners mentioned above shows this to be the case. The Gone Girl paperback 

campaign featured widespread outdoor advertising, with a call to action asking readers to tweet what they think. 

The creative for the posters was also unique. Two quotes from the male and female protagonists were contrasted 

side-by-side to show the two points of view – reinforcing the tagline ‘there are two sides to every story’ – and 

appealing to both men and women. Topsy.com analysis of Twitter shows over twenty-four thousand tweets were 

generated in the UK using the ‘gonegirl’ hashtag in the first three months of the campaign (Jan 2013-March 2013). 

Some of the more influential tweets came from traditional media and traditional retailers – @Waterstones with 

seventy-nine thousand followers and @guardianbooks with five hundred and ninety-nine thousand followers, used 

both the hashtag and tag line in their tweets to users. Of course, it is impossible to draw a direct line from this activity 

to actual sales. Gone Girl had been published to significant success and acclaim in both hardback in the UK and 

was number one in the US at the time this poster campaign began. The reviews online and across traditional media 

were overwhelmingly positive. The point of referencing this campaign, however, is to show how a simple poster 

campaign can amplify positive communication around a book. The messages in these posters were repeated 

online again and again, and it is a great example of compiling all of the elements into a persuasive form of mass 

communication. 

For me, the other interesting thing about this campaign is its timing. Scheduled alongside the paperback release, six 

months after the original hardback publication – this is a highly visible campaign that perpetuates the already extremely 

good word of mouth generated by more traditional means. 

51 Email interview with Peter Collingridge, Publishing Entrepreneur, 9th November 2013 



17


Timing is also playing a big part in the evolution of the traditional publicity campaign. Harper Fiction PR Director 

Elizabeth Dawson and Head of Publicity Louise Swannell both talk about trying to stagger publicity activity across an 

entire year 53 – from pre-publication awareness right through to paperback release. In her awards submission to the 

Publishers’ Publicity Circle, for a campaign for Tracy Chevalier’s The Last Runaway, Dawson says: 

‘I placed a strong emphasis on review coverage in the national press, gaining reviews in every national 

broadsheet, thus reinforcing her credibility and ensuring both that she was firmly on-radar for spring 

reading and of course longevity for the paperback. Sell-in to the media started early, with a first proof 

mailing as part of a wider divisional ‘literary spring’ push in October, followed by super proofs in the New 

Year as well as the final hardback mailing. 

In order to re-engage a broad fan base, events and also blogger endorsements were key to the success 

of this campaign … I connected with the literary bloggers early, with an exclusive giveaway via Dove 

Grey Reader and a wide blog tour that incorporated reviews, interviews and guest posts, and took Tracy 

from the top literary bloggers to the quilting and Quaker communities. In terms of events, appearances 

began in March and are ongoing throughout the year in order to keep her in the public eye and really 

cement the message that Tracy is a top literary novelist returning to her game.’ 54 

While none of this is ground breaking in terms of the specific activity, what is interesting is the investment of time, 

budget and personnel resource into a promotional schedule that spans two formats and a whole year. 

It is also worth highlighting some campaigns that illustrate the overlap of marketing and publicity, and of offline and 

online visibility. It seems again, that while the activities themselves may not be new or experimental – the importance 

of a holistic effort from publishers can no longer be ignored. 

CASE STUDY: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel Marketing Campaign 

The promotional campaign for Jeff Kinney’s Diary of Wimpy Kid:The Third Wheel, designed by Vanessa Godden 

from Puffin Books, is an excellent example of a highly evolved promotional campaign. 

The campaign objectives: 

▪▪ 

To publish the best and fastest selling children’s book of 2012 

▪▪ 

To generate a sizeable increase on sales of the previous book, Cabin Fever 

▪▪ 

To ensure sustained sales with the title remaining at the No.1 chart position until Christmas 

▪▪ 

To improve positioning for the title on the High St 

▪▪ 

To drive solid pre-orders across accounts by creating noise for the book throughout 2012 

▪▪ 

To maximize cross-promotional opportunities with Twentieth Century Fox 

▪▪ 

To grow Penguin Children’s Wimpy Kid databases 55 

These objectives alone show the depth and diversity that is required from current marketing and publicity campaigns 

in the UK. The first four points are quite conventional in their aims; they are the kind of objectives I would associate 

with many book projects that I have been involved with in Australia. The final three points embody, I think, an 

evolution in book promotion and publisher marketing efforts in general. Creating the sense of anticipation needed 

for the all-important pre-orders of the new retail sector, working with partners and cross promoting, and growing 

publisher databases are all new and important pieces to book promotion – pieces that still need to be incorporated 

into broader promotional plans but not, I would argue, at the expense of more traditional activities. 

53 Face to face meeting with Harper Fiction publicity team, 11 June 2013 

54 Harper Fiction submission to Publishers’ Publicity Circle, 18 June 2013 

55 As presented at the Book Marketing Society open meeting, 17 July 2013 


18


The lynch pins of the campaign are: 

1. This is the direct to consumer piece – understanding what the existing fans of the series want through market research. 

2. The retailer is in no way neglected in this promotion. Puffin created individualised retailer by retailer marketing 

packages featuring heavily branded point-of-sale material, standees, gifts with purchase and competition prizes. 

Retailers were rigorously consulted before packs were created to meet their specific (and differing) needs. 


19


3. Partnership with Twentieth Century Fox to increase reach and maximise publicity events. This partnership reached 

over 10 million Wimpy Kid fans through a pre-order campaign driven by the cinema and DVD release of the third 

and second Wimpy Kid movies respectively. Order messages and the new book’s cover were featured across 

Twentieth Century Fox’s nationwide film collateral on and offline. Flyers were placed in DVDs. A Jeff Kinney fan 

event was held in conjunction with a Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days film premiere, on publication of the new 

book. A ‘Wimpy Kid fun zone’ was created at a Westfield shopping centre on Sunday 2 December 2012, for fans 

to interact with the brand. Footfall to this one day event was 100,000 and Jeff Kinney signed copies of his book 

for three hours. 

4. Above the line activity: Puffin invested in a National Rail outdoor advertising campaign which began slightly before 

publication, reaching 3.3 million people. This was followed by a two week television advertising campaign on the 

Nickelodeon network, reaching over a million viewers. 

5. Online Activity: This included a dedicated Facebook page and Facebook promotions. Puffin devised a ‘Wimpy 

Kid Prom’ – a week-long publication party where fans could download exclusive freebies (content and prizes) and 

celebrate the book’s launch online. In total, Puffin reached half a million Wimpy Kid fans via 380,000 Facebook 

fans, 25,000 newsletter recipients and 100,000 registered online users. Trailer ads were also featured on tween 

gaming websites, and a dedicated website was created for teachers and librarians. 

Of course not every new release can be tied into an extraordinarily popular film franchise, but there are nevertheless 

some interesting lessons to be drawn from the campaign above. (Not least for other properties which do have cross 

media promotional opportunities – for example Game of Thrones, and big personality-driven non-fiction.) 


20

What Does it Mean to Connect Directly 

with Consumers 

Accepting the fact that the retail and media landscapes have forever changed, and that a shift in focus is required 

from publishers – what does it mean to be a consumer-facing publisher in 2013 

It seems the path to the reader has gone from this: 56 

to something more like this: 57 

56 Source: http://www.slideshare.net/EnhancedEditions/innovation-in-publishing-if-book-then 

57 Source: http://www.slideshare.net/EnhancedEditions/innovation-in-publishing-if-book-then 


21

What Does it Mean to Connect Directly with Consumers (cont.) 

So far, trade publishing houses in the UK have largely responded to this by streamlining their sales, marketing and 

distribution of books. There continues to be experimentation around price and format, and a focus on metadata, 

search engine optimisation and web presence (all of which could be the subjects of entire reports on their own). 

Focus on Branding 

Some publishers have a renewed focus on branding – publisher branding. Stephen Page believes the identity of 

Faber and Faber as a brand is key to the continued success of the business. Faber has a rich history in which to 

base its brand. When visiting the London office Page talks about ‘the house that TS Eliot built’ and tells me about 

the archive of letters from Eliot to his writers, ‘writers of huge importance’, that are still kept within the building. 

‘We’re getting better and better at living the myth’, Page says. 58 Further to this, the publishing house has just 

announced a redesigned word marque as part of a branding strategy designed to ‘future-proof’ the publisher for 

the digital era. 59 In announcing the branding strategy to the trade press in London, Page said: ‘Faber’s trademark ‘ff’ 

colophon, created by Pentagram, has sat at the heart of our brand for nearly 30 years, and will continue to do so. 

In announcing a thrilling list for spring 2014, we are also unveiling a new design for our word marque. Reviewing our 

brand design in the light of the new world of reading, with its emphasis on readers online and digital publishing, we 

realised that we needed to find new ways to express our visual identity.’ 60 

Brand and branding is ‘massively important’ at Bloomsbury too. Group Sales and Marketing Director Kathleen 

Farrar talked about the company’s global strategy and the importance of consistent branding of authors, of titles, 

and of the company across the world as integral for the company in the current publishing climate. 

Penguin, Faber and Bloomsbury all benefit from having a brand which is recognisable to consumers. As publishing 

houses continue to grapple with the challenges presented by the digital landscape, having a brand that is already 

known and loved by readers as well as writers is surely a huge advantage. Is it then necessary for other publishing 

houses to try to gain similar awareness with readers at a company level Is this even possible Looking at the film 

industry there are many studio brands that the general public recognise, but I highly doubt that the average filmgoer 

is searching the internet wondering what the latest Paramount release is. 

At a staff Q&A session with former HarperCollins CEO Victoria Barnsley the question of branding arose once again. 

Barnsley talked about the importance of publishers having a consumer-facing brand but thought that for a big house 

with a diverse publishing program like HarperCollins this could be more easily achieved through the branding of 

particular imprints: Harper’s literary imprint Fourth Estate, and Voyager, Harper’s fantasy imprint for example, offer a 

much easier ‘consumer brand’ than the giant umbrella that is HarperCollins. Furthermore, Barnsley said is that it is 

more important that ‘books and authors are the consumer face’ of any publishing brand. 61 

While it is true that there are advantages to both approaches, it would be expensive for a larger publishing house or 

imprint without existing brand recognition to embark on self-branding exercises alongside those they are undertaking 

for their authors and books. Hachette, for example, has so many different publishing companies working throughout 

various territories that it seems pointless for them to try to turn ‘Hachette’ into a brand that readers will look to. 

Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster all have names that many readers will recognise – and trust 

to a degree – but rarely would a reader believe that their offerings are so consistent that they would trust the brand 

in the same way they would an author and thus would automatically buy, e.g. the next book by Lee Child. Whilst the 

intersection between readers and these publishing brands is much more likely to happen at an author or book level, 

there is certainly an argument for these publishers building communities around marquee brand authors in order to 

promote new talent on their lists. 


59 http://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-branding-faber.html 

60 http://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-branding-faber.html 

61 Company Q&A session with Victoria Barnsley, 6 June 2013 


22

What Does it Mean to Connect Directly with Consumers (cont) 

Focus on Events 

The author event was also cause for much discussion whilst I was in London. Like Australia, these events have 

long been the property of independent bookshops (author talks) and chain/High Street retailers (author signings). 

Also, as in Australia, the size and success of these events were varied. I attended events run by several different 

independent bookshops whilst in London: Lutyens & Rubinstein Bookshop, Foyles and the Idler Academy. I also 

went to launches and signings hosted by Waterstones. The events programs were incredibly vibrant – particularly 

in the weeks following the Hay Festival and the weeks preceding Edinburgh Festival when authors from around 

the globe had descended on London and were available to talk. The events I attended were either free or charged 

between £5 and £7 for entry. Books sales at most events that I attended, however, were modest. 

At the Hay Festival, again much like many festivals in Australia, crowds were buoyant and many people had travelled 

far and wide to attend and hear their favourite authors speak. Again book sales were modest compared to the 

number of people attending the events, but interestingly most authors and publishers I spoke to were passionate 

about the importance of writers’ festivals and the longer term return on investment for both author and publisher in 

attending. ‘There are more and more festivals popping up in villages all over the UK. When you send an author to 

these festivals it can be fantastic for their [the author’s] local profile. They get great community press, and the whole 

town comes out to hear them talk,’ said Helen Ellis Publicity Director, William Collins. 62 Anna Pallai from Faber and 

Faber agrees: ‘there is an expectation from nearly all of our authors that they be invited to one festival or another. 

Mainly the big ones like Hay or Edinburgh. There’s also Harrogate, the crime festival. We positively encourage our 

authors to attend this festival. The peer reviewing and networking and tweeting that comes out of the close knit 

community that congregates at these festivals is invaluable. In fact, it’s really noticeable if an author hasn’t been to 

Harrogate and hasn’t broken into that community’. 63 

Selling books predominantly online has in many ways made it even more important for authors to connect with their 

readers offline. To this end, it seems important to note that many publishing houses in the UK are experimenting with 

running their own events programs. HarperCollins had just started to run some literary salons through their Fourth 

Estate imprint (and have since hired Sam Missingham, late of The Bookseller, as Head of Events in the Corporate 

Communications team), and Random House were also in the process of ‘looking at hosting their own events for 

their literary and YA authors’. 64 But it is Faber Social that is really the pioneer in this area. Faber Social is an events 

and publishing programme curated by Faber where literature and music get together. Monthly events are held at 

The Social on Little Portland Street, London and are an exciting mash-up of literature, music and performance. Book 

sales are not the number one aim of this events program, although books and merchandise are available for sale 

at the events. Most importantly for the time being, ‘is that we are providing a physical space to connect with our 

readers, as well as building an online community that we can communicate with about upcoming events and books 

that will almost definitely be of interest to them,’ says Events Manager Becky Fincham. 65 

While I was in London, Faber Social was the talk of the trade, announcing a nationwide tour of events to promote 

Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop, by musician and journalist Bob Stanley, published in October. 

Events were to be held during the month of release in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and London with Stanley and 

a variety of guests. The event at Gorilla in Manchester featured musicians such as Paul Hanley of The Fall, while at 

Rough Trade East in London Stanley was joined by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti and Sian Pattenden, a former 

journalist for pop magazine Smash Hits. Faber Social handled all the organisation of the events from venues to talent 

to ticket sales. Before I leave London I ask whether there is a profit to be made from organising such events. ‘We 

haven’t lost any money yet,’ 66 says Fincham – and that’s not to mention the brand presence and growing community 

that are created around Faber Social. 

62 Company Q&A session with Victoria Barnsley, 6 June 2013 

63 Face-to-face interview with Anna Pallai, Head of Publicity Faber and Faber, 17 June, 2013 

64 Face-to-face interview with Joe Pickering, Publicity Director at Penguin Random House UK, 16 August, 2013 

65 Face-to-face interview with Becky Fincham, Events and Publicity Manager Faber and Faber, 18 July, 2013 

66 Face-to-face interview with Becky Fincham, Events and Publicity Manager Faber and Faber, 18 July, 2013 


23

What Does it Mean to Connect Directly with Consumers (cont.) 

Focus on Connecting with Readers Online 

‘What will replace that serendipity of just walking past a shop window and seeing something in the 

window, the serendipity of browsing in a shop The browsing experience online is definitely not as good 

as the physical browsing experience …’ 67 

The word ‘discovery’ might be one of the most over used words in publishing these days, second only to ‘metadata’. 

But both are thrown around with good reason– it seems ‘discovery’ is the riddle of the moment, and while 

Amazon have been able to better the physical retail experience when it comes to commerce and convenience, no 

one online has absolutely bettered the browsing experience of a good bookshop. As Sara Lloyd points out above, 

it’s very hard to create an algorithm for serendipity, try as we might. 

Enter Goodreads. At the 2013 Bookseller Marketing and Publicity Conference, Patrick Brown, Director Author 

Marketing announced Goodreads’ mission statement: To help readers find and share books they love. The site has 

20 million members who in 2012 shelved (marked as books to read) 220 million books. Good Reads holds 24 million 

reader reviews and is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. According to Patrick Brown: 

▪▪ 

Social will create one of the biggest changes in publishing in the next five years 

▪▪ 

Social will drive discovery, especially serendipitous discovery 

▪▪ 

Social will connect readers, authors and publishers in new ways 68 

In the world of Goodreads, pre-awareness and giveaways are the name of the game, the so-called answer to the 

‘riddle of discovery’. Publishers are encouraged to give away advanced reading copies of new books to readers 

on the site 3 to 5 months before publication. The goal is get reviews– lots of reviews and early in the life of the 

book. The advantage of early reader reviews is that they improve the position of a book on the site, and the social 

media aspect of Goodreads means that reviews are shared: on Facebook, on Twitter as well on individual reader’s 

Goodreads profiles and to Amazon. Early reader reviews would also seem to be quite raw and unaffected by critical 

appraisals published in the mainstream media – but does this make them more or less useful 

In terms of traditional marketing and publicity, Goodreads might be cause for a re-think of the traditional timelines 

regularly employed by these disciplines. Newspapers, magazines or even the trade press are no longer the first 

place a title is reviewed. It also means that marketing and publicity doesn’t have to (and perhaps shouldn’t) start 

right on publication. 

In May 2013 alone, Goodreads members shared: 

▪▪ 

1.3 million progress updates 

▪▪ 

1 million quotes from books they were reading 

▪▪ 

859,000 reviews on their own social media 

The numbers are impressive. Far more impressive I would wager than stats from any individual publishers’ websites 

or social media. But back to serendipity… how serendipitous is it if someone who calls themselves ‘a reader’, 

who congregates in an online ‘reading community’ stumbles across a book because of an unqualified review or a 

giveaway It could be argued that to just rely only on Goodreads for discovery is like the equivalent of only marketing 

books to people who are already inside a Waterstones store. It’s tempting, and I can already see the presentations 

to authors and agents citing ‘Goodreads promotional campaign’ as the marketing and publicity strategy for a book, 

but my instinct is that to really break a new author Good Reads should be but one component in a broader schedule 

of activity. 

67 Face-to-face interview with Sara Lloyd, Digital and Communications Director Pan Macmillan, 31 July, 2013 

68 Good Reads presentation at The Bookseller Marketing and Publicity Conference, 9 July 2013 


24

Cross Industry Collaboration 

In this current climate of change, both inside trade publishing houses and change within the market generally, cross 

industry collaboration seems more important than ever. I discussed earlier in this report the vibrancy and the immediacy 

of the trade press in the UK, which goes a long way to fostering positive communication and debate across the industry. 

There is a wealth of opinion shared, and few actions from publishers or retailers go without comment. As somewhat of 

an outsider in London, The Bookseller website was a huge source of information about all segments of publishing and 

it was refreshing to read articles written by editors and publicists and marketers and people from all levels, from all over 

the industry. 

The Bookseller also organises are series of conferences for publishing professionals throughout the year: The 

Bookseller Design Conference; The Bookseller Children’s Conference; The Bookseller Marketing and Publicity 

Conference; FutureBook Innovation Workshop; The Booksellerr Futurebook Conference – all boast stellar lineups 

of presenters and workshops and go a long way toward championing excellence within these disciplines. Each 

conference aims to provide inspiration and practical advice, and I was surprised at the attendance of the Marketing 

and Publicity conference not to mention the usefulness of it. 

I also found the Publishers’ Publicity Circle and Book Marketing Society to be of tremendous value to the UK industry. 

In light of the challenges facing both of these departments, particularly in the instances where departments have been 

merged or roles have been changed, both organisations provide a professional forum in which to discuss issues and 

ideas. 

The Publishers’ Publicity Circle has been running for over fifty years and aims to enable ‘all book publicists from 

publishing houses and freelance PR agencies to gather and share information on a regular basis’. 69 

Quarterly meetings are held in central London to provide a forum for press journalists, television and radio researchers 

and producers to meet publicists collectively. Representatives from the media are invited to speak about the ways 

in which they can feature authors and their books, and how book publicists can most effectively provide relevant 

information and material. 

The meetings are held in the Gallery of Foyles on the Charing Cross Road, cost £15 to attend and include lunch. The 

meeting I attended had publicity representatives from all major publishers that ranged from assistants to directors. 

The agenda for this particular meeting was The Times newspaper, and editors from several supplements and 

sections came to speak about the opportunities for books within their pages over the coming months. 

Quarterly awards are also presented to the best publicity campaigns– these are judged according to the use of 

imagination, careful thought and effective planning rather than the most coverage achieved. 

The Book Marketing Society represents marketers within the UK book industry. It champions marketing professionalism 

and works on co-operative industry projects and events to raise the profile of books in general and help expand 

the UK book market. Anyone working for a publisher, bookseller, wholesaler or other associated areas of the book 

industry is eligible for membership. 

According to their impressive website, The Book Marketing Society aims to deliver: 

▪▪ 

collaborative projects 

▪▪ 

networking opportunities 

▪▪ 

a forum to debate industry initiatives 

▪▪ 

a briefing centre with news on trends and marketing technology 

▪▪ 

career opportunities 

▪▪ 

a higher profile for marketing within the book industry, through awards, events and market research 

69 http://www.publisherspublicitycircle.co.uk/index.asp 


25

Cross Industry Collaboration (cont.) 

Fees are significantly more expensive than the Publishers’ Publicity Council with the annual cost for one member at 

£260. Companies are encouraged to enrol as many people as possible, any of whom can then attend meetings and 

submit campaigns for the Awards. There are substantial discounts for multiple memberships within a company. 70 

As with the Publisher’s Publicity Council, the Book Marketing Society is committed to promoting excellence and 

professionalism. There are two main award schemes for marketers: the Seasonal Awards, which reward the best 

marketing campaigns every four months in three categories, adults, children’s and shoestring (campaigns under 

£5k) and the Annual Awards. In 2013, the Annual Awards recognise the very best campaigns in six categories: Best 

Blurb, Best Overall Package, Best Shoestring Campaign, Best Partnership, Best Debut Campaign, Best Brand 

Management. 

The meeting I attended had featured two guest speakers: David Roche from Evanidus, who presented an exciting 

new mobile platform (currently in development) for reading and sharing books, and Xavier Izaguirre from Total Media 

who gave a fantastic presentation on ‘Experiential Marketing’. Following this was an in-depth presentation of case 

studies, sharing of success stories and general discussion of issues affecting marketers within the trade. 

The Book Marketing Society also manages several high profile industry initiatives. Of note were: 

▪▪ 

The CrimeThriller-specific TV Book Club – organised in partnership with SpecSavers and screened on ITV3, aims 

to promote 6 selected crime/thriller novels 

▪▪ 

Specsavers National Book Awards 2013 – hosted and promoted by Lorraine Kelly on ITV1 ‘Daybreak’ (audience 

– 2.4m); confirmed interviews with winners during Daybreak the week after the event leading to the televised 

announcement of overall winner of the Specsavers Book of the Year on Christmas Day 

▪▪ 

British Sports Book Awards – now aired on BT Sports Channel 

▪▪ 

Political Book of the Year Awards – sponsored by PaddyPower & promoted on Classic FM 

▪▪ 

Wainwright Prize for UK Travel writing – sponsored by Thwaites partnered with The National Trust 

The Book Marketing Society is managed by a committee made up of industry representatives and Thorpe Bowker 

staff (Jo Henry, Director, Bowker Market Research is the Executive Director). The Publishers’ Publicity Circle is 

primarily managed by volunteers from within the industry. Whilst we in Australia, may not have the personnel to 

justify two distinct organisations, I do feel strongly that one professional marketing and publicity body would be of 

great service to the book industry as a whole. 

The meetings are a low-key, cost effective way for professional development, recognition of talent, and promotion 

of excellence within the industry. 

70 http://www.bookmarketingsociety.co.uk/membership/#subscribe 


26

Conclusion 

jThis report led me down many varied lines of enquiry. As I conducted interviews, and asked questions, and attended 

events, festivals, conferences, I kept arriving at the same notion. 

We are in ‘the uncomfortable middle’, as Kevin Shockey says. To succeed in the climate as it is right now we as 

publishers need to stretch further, to do everything, to be online, offline, above the line, below the line. We need to 

face consumers without turning our backs on retailers. As an industry, we are no longer just competing with each 

other. We all have enemies in common. It is undoubtedly a challenging time. But who doesn’t love a challenge 

If my time in the UK assured me of anything, it is of the fact that books are not going anywhere. Writers will write. 

Readers will read. It’s up to us to work out how we as individuals, and as an industry, connect the two and create a 

meaningful role for publishers in that mix. I asked Andrew Franklin, the owner of Profile Books, about his strategy for 

his company’s future. I asked him about branding and marketing and data. His answer to every question ‘Publish 

good books’. Indeed. 


27

Acknowledgements 

I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for their support while applying for the fellowship: 

The Unwin Charitable Trust for the wonderful opportunity to visit the UK and research this report. 

The Unwin Fellowship judges Patrick Gallagher, Lou Johnson and Cate Patterson for their role in granting me this 

invaluable experience, and for taking the time to ensure that the fellowship is available to those in the Australian 

publishing industry. 

Jane Palfreyman, Jeanne Ryckmans and Anh Do for their encouragement and kind words in support of my application 

Anna Valdinger and Joel Naoum for application advice and further encouragement 

At HarperCollins Australia thank you to James Kellow, Simon Milne and Jonathan Connelly for affording me the 

opportunity to take part in the fellowship, and providing advice and contacts for my time in London. 

I would also like to acknowledge the following people in London for their incredible generosity while I was there. 

Thanks to: 

Georgina Miller, the trust administrator for her kindness and help during my stay in London 

Previous Unwin Fellows Mark Richards and Hannah Westland for showing me the ropes 

Allen & Unwin-ers Clare Drysdale, Sam Redman, and Patrick Gallagher for providing publishing contacts and London 

advice and especially, for an excellent Ashes Party (despite the result!). 

The international sales team at Harper UK, especially Damon Greeney, Katie Moss, Georgina Green, Catherine Friis 

and Stef Heinrichs for all their hospitality and help 

Finally, I’d like to thank all of those who contributed interviews and assistance while I was researching and writing 

my report. 

In Australia thanks to: 

Andy Palmer, Susan Wyndham, Simon Milne, Anabel Pandiella, Karen Reid, Peri Wilson, Jackie Arthur, Anna 

Hayward, Emily Mann, Jane Finemore, Christine Farmer, Tracey Cheetham, Eve Jackson, Ashley Hay, Craig Silvey 

and Michelle De Kretser. 

In London thanks to: 

Lauren Finger, Lucy Howkins, Sam Redman, Clare Drysdale, Sarah Ward, Andrew Franklin, Jon Slack, Jo Henry, 

Joanna Ellis, Morgan Phillips, Joe Pickering, Victoria Barnesly, Nick Pearson, Rebecca McEwan, Catherine Patrick, 

Erin Roy, Barnaby Dawe, John Athanasiou, Sze Sze Chin, Patrick Jansen-Smith, Louise Swannell, Amy Winchester, 

Liz Dawson, Ann Bissell, Andy Quinn, Catherine Daly, Stephen Page, Matt Haslum, Anna Pallai, Becky Fincham, 

Hannah Griffiths, Sarah Savitt, Louise Doughty, Craig Taylor, Heather White, Sarah Lloyd, Hollie Howe, Rebecca Ikin, 

Kathleen Farrar, Richard Whitehead and Tom Getty. 


28

Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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