Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association
Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association
Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association
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The UK Media Space (cont.)<br />
As in Australia, radio is a big and effective medium for book promotion in the UK. Simon Mayo’s Drivetime Radio 2<br />
Bookclub, airs on BBC Radio 2 and reaches roughly 15.5 million listeners a week – around half male and half female.<br />
‘Radio 2 loves books and is keen to do more and more with them’ notes the show’s producer Joe Haddow. ‘This<br />
year one of the big successes was the 1st UK interview with American Sci-Fi author, Hugh Howie on his recently<br />
published title, WOOL. After being on the show, his book went to No. 5 in the Amazon top 10’ Haddow told the<br />
<strong>Publishers</strong> Publicity Council Meeting. 22<br />
Social media is also big in the UK. Britain has 24 million daily Facebook users, from a population of 63 million<br />
people. 23 Deloitte’s <strong>2013</strong> Media Consumer Survey found that ‘on average the UK consumer has 240 friends on<br />
Facebook and undertakes, on average, 3.5 actions on the site each day, where an action is defined as updating their<br />
status or commenting on or ‘liking’ something. 24 Despite these numbers, publishers in the UK are limited in their use<br />
of Facebook to talk directly consumers. A quick scan through the Facebook pages of publishers that I visited in the<br />
UK shows significantly smaller communities than their <strong>Australian</strong> counterparts. HarperCollins Non-Fiction Associate<br />
Publisher, Erin Roy, says that for her division at least, Twitter is king. ‘Our “brands” in non-fiction here, are our very<br />
high profile authors. If we do run a social media campaign, it is usually through Twitter using promoted tweets to<br />
a specific author’s twitter followers. At the moment, and this is likely to change, general Facebook content is not a<br />
priority for my non-fiction team.’ 25 Twitter users in the UK have topped 15 million in <strong>2013</strong>, an increase of five million<br />
users from 2012. 26<br />
It is also worth highlighting the vibrant trade media landscape in the UK. The Bookseller, which publishes weekly<br />
in print. Online, the bookseller.com provides daily news and comment about the book business, ‘starting at 8am<br />
with the latest digest of press reports about the publishing sector and financial updates from the City. Regular news<br />
updates from The Bookseller’s news desk follow throughout the day.’ 25 The site also includes opinion, blogs, author<br />
profiles; publishing employee spotlights and features about the book business. In addition to this, more publishing<br />
and book news can be found at through the online daily news service: BookBrunch, and mainstream newspapers<br />
– especially the Guardian publish stories about and by members of the trade, and articles about publishing trends.<br />
Books and authors are on TV too. I’ll discuss this in further detail later in the report, in brief: in addition to standard<br />
breakfast and morning television interview opportunities for authors, writers’ festival events and public author talks<br />
are regularly simulcast on Sky Arts 2. Author awards feature in TV news bulletins, and some genre specific book<br />
awards such as Specsavers ITV3/CWA Crime Thriller Awards have partnered with television networks to ensure<br />
mass media exposure.<br />
<strong>2013</strong> did see the cancellation of Mariella Frostrup’s book show on the Sky Arts network, but this has been quickly<br />
replaced The Book Show hosted by James Whale to air from November 24 on both Sky and Freesat.<br />
All this is to say, that, despite a decrease in physical book displays from high street retailers and the like, books<br />
and reading are still a highly visible part of English culture. This, I believe gives publishers in the UK an incredible<br />
advantage as they embark on the challenge of connecting directly with readers themselves.<br />
22 Notes from Publisher Publicity Council meeting, 25 June, <strong>2013</strong><br />
23 http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-checked-by-9-million-australians-every-day-<strong>2013</strong>0820-2s7wo.html#ixzz2lc6mQwBg<br />
24 http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/tmt/media-industry/media-consumer-survey-<strong>2013</strong>/<br />
25 Face-to-face interview with Erin Roy, Non-Fiction Associate Publisher, HarperCollins UK, 18 June, <strong>2013</strong><br />
26 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/10291360/Twitter-claims-15m-active-users-in-the-UK.htmll<br />
27 http://www.thebookseller.com/about.html<br />
Author: <strong>Kelly</strong> <strong>Fagan</strong><br />
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