Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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/
Author: Kelly Fagan
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