Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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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 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 Author: Kelly Fagan 11
Page 1 and 2: A Very Long Engagement: how the new
Page 3 and 4: Overview With book marketing, every
Page 5 and 6: Key Findings 1. Differences/similar
Page 7 and 8: The Australian Retail Space In Aust
Page 9 and 10: An Australian book consumer benchma
Page 11: The UK Retail Space When I approach
Page 15 and 16: Marketing and Publicity Department
Page 17 and 18: The Evolution of Marketing and Publ
Page 23 and 24: What Does it Mean to Connect Direct
Page 25 and 26: What Does it Mean to Connect Direct
Page 27 and 28: Cross Industry Collaboration In thi
Page 29 and 30: Conclusion jThis report led me down

Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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