Report 2013 - Kelly Fagan HERE - Australian Publishers Association

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/
11 http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspxtype=item&id=24941
12 http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspxtype=item&id=27519
13 Face-to-face interview with Andy Palmer, Publicity Director, Allen&Unwin, 18 April, 2013
Author: Kelly Fagan
7