Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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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. Author: Kelly Fagan 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. Author: Kelly Fagan 3
Page 1 and 2: A Very Long Engagement: how the new
Page 3: Overview With book marketing, every
Page 7 and 8: The Australian Retail Space In Aust
Page 9 and 10: An Australian book consumer benchma
Page 11 and 12: The UK Retail Space When I approach
Page 13 and 14: The UK Media Space (cont.) As in Au
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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