How to Market Books

Alison Baverstock, Susannah Bowen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429944666
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Over five editions, How to Market Books has established itself as the standard text on marketing for both the publishing industry and the wider creative economy. Industry professionals and students of Publishing Studies rely on the techniques and tactics in this invaluable book.

With the publishing industry changing fast, and the marketing and selling of content now delivered worldwide through technology, this much needed guide highlights the critical role of the marketeer, and the strategies and techniques at their disposal. The book's approach is logical and calming; beginning with marketing theory and moving into how this works in practice. Readers benefit from a blend of practical advice on how to organise and deliver marketing plans – and an objectivity which supports their future management of issues not yet on the horizon.

Thoroughly updated, this 6th edition maintains the book's popular, accessible and supportive style, and now offers:

• A fully international perspective for today's global industry
• New case studies to illustrate changing industry issues and application
• Completely updated coverage of digital and social marketing and GDPR
• Topical updates, more case studies and tips on getting work in publishing on a companion website
• Detailed coverage of individual market segments, bringing relevance to every area of publishing

Part I

General principles and understanding

1 Marketing and marketing in publishing

Introduction

The meaning of marketing

What marketing means in publishing

Checklists for achieving effective marketing

Segmenting, targeting and positioning

Branding

Integrated marketing communications

Relationship marketing

Conclusion and looking forward

Notes

Further reading

Introduction

It is a frequent comment that today’s publishing industry is driven by marketing; decisions about what to publish and the quality of content are subsumed into overriding concerns about whether or not material will sell. All stakeholders in the process – authors, agents, publishers, retailers and wholesalers – are looking for markets with a need for content and a corresponding ability either to arrange funding or pay, and for which resources can be developed, marketed and sold. But the relationship between the publishing industry and marketing has long been ambivalent; should the industry look for the best content available, and try to find a market for it – or rather publish content it knows will find buyers, whether or not it stretches them emotionally or intellectually. Furthermore, the industry’s products and services can be isolated as ‘public goods’, supporting literacy and culture, but how that relationship is to be funded, if it is to continue, needs firm consideration.

We will get into the detail of what marketing is and how it works (both generally and within publishing) shortly, but before going any further it’s helpful to highlight three very important issues.

• First, the publishing industry is a business, and if it is to survive it must either make a profit, or find funding from elsewhere.

Sir Stanley Unwin’s famous comment that the first duty of a publisher is to remain solvent¹ is worth remembering in this context: if you publish material that is esteemed but does not sell, or sells but does not prompt a desire within the market to buy from you again in future, unless you have significant personal or external funding, you are unlikely to stay in business and hence be able to publish again in future. Successful publishing houses spread their risk by offering a range of materials, established and new, and for a range of markets, just as stockbrokers hedge their bets by diversifying their purchases across market sectors, enabling vulnerabilities in individual markets to be offset against each other.

While there are many good reasons for finalising content that do not involve its subsequent presentation and sale – family or organisational histories, personal reflections, picture books of holidays – this book is predicated on an understanding that the reader is motivated by a desire to market and sell material.

• Second, books (or any published content) compete for spending power against a whole range of products, not just other books.

A manager may select an online consultancy service rather than an expensive reference work; a windsurfing enthusiast is likely to find a short film on YouTube preferable to buying a book on the subject; a head teacher may decide to commission a promotional film about their institution rather than spend money on publishers’ teaching resources. And the amount of advertising competing for our attention and trying to direct our pattern of expenditure is enormous. Seeking to establish how much is spent on advertising worldwide, estimates vary² but the trend is for digital to be rising and in some markets (notably the UK and China) to be rivalling if not overtaking print.³

• Third, marketing is much more complicated than it looks.

Marketing at its most effective appears simple: the slogan so appropriate that it is instantly memorable; the email that makes a product sound such a specific and personal match for individual needs that the recipient responds immediately. Making sweeping generalisations about how this is achieved is similarly popular – ‘all you need is Facebook and a good headline’ and the job is done; or relying on the ‘gut feeling’ of the marketing director. In reality this simplicity is not easily achieved; the marketing processes and the creation of effective marketing materials are much more complex. Effective marketing depends on a deep understanding of the chosen market and product, within the context of contemporary society and the available resources, and effective management of marketing tends to emerge through detailed research and planning rather than relying on either the intuition of those in charge or the formulaic application of rules.

Whereas marketing may operate in an atmosphere of frenzy and participants may feel that simply by being busy they are fulfilling their goals, in practice the habit of planning marketing strategies – aims and objectives – is important to acquire. Drawing up a marketing plan acts as a mind-focusing exercise, encouraging clarity of thought and helping you prioritise. And, of course, carefully planned campaigns stand a very much better chance of achieving their goals. Finally, remember that effective marketing planning is vital in acquiring as well as selling published content. Agents or authors offering titles to prospective publishers will place considerable importance on suitor companies’ various abilities to present (and deliver) coherent marketing plans – so you may be charged with writing marketing plans for products or services to which your employer is not yet committed.

Mike Markkula, second CEO of Apple Computer, Inc., wrote his (marketing) principles in a one-page paper titled ‘The Apple Marketing Philosophy’ that stressed three points. The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: ‘We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.’ The second was focus: ‘In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.’ The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasised that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. ‘People DO judge a book by its cover’, he wrote. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.⁴

The meaning of marketing⁵

Broadly defined, marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organisations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.⁶

This is one of the shorter definitions of marketing in circulation. Some are based on a series of present participles (‘informing’, ‘advertising’, ‘selling’) that relate to stages or techniques, others use a range of nouns (‘wants’, ‘demands’, ‘products’, ‘markets’) and link them with a series of abstract nouns (‘satisfaction’, ‘exchange’, ‘fulfilment’). Each marketing trailblazer has their own personal philosophy (and vocabulary to describe it). Even academics teaching and studying the subject cannot agree and a paper seeking to define the problem came up with more than 50 definitions.⁷ David Stokes and Wendy Lomax thought:

The reason for this diversity of meaning is that marketing is both a management philosophy and a function in an organisation. As a philosophy it insists that an organisation is focussed on the needs of customers. As a function, it includes activities which affect customers such as pricing, advertising, selling and market research.⁸

But boil down all the seminal texts and jargon and you are left with a relatively simple concept: marketing means effective selling; meeting customer needs profitably. So if marketing appears in your job title, it means you are involved with presenting, promoting and selling what your company produces. Whether or not you count the cash, you help prepare customers to part with their money and, in the longer term, to remain satisfied with the transaction – and hopefully return to buy again from you in future.

What marketing means in publishing

Marketing in publishing has a more recent history; in the past 40 years there has been a complete revolution. 40 years ago most firms had only publicity departments – and no formal marketing responsibilities; marketing activity was generally product-orientated rather than market-orientated (commission products and then think about whom to sell them to rather than base commissioning decisions on what markets want and need). What we would today recognise as marketing activities were spread out between various other departments and largely viewed as an end-stage in production; processes applied to the finished product rather than integrated within its development. Today the marketing function is ubiquitous and much more pervasive:

[It] goes beyond these activities to encompass the multiplicity of ways in which books are presented and represented in the marketplace: via their reception in the media; their gaining of literary awards; their placement on bestseller lists, to give only a few examples. Marketing is conceived as a form of representation and interpretation, situated in the spaces between the author and the reader – but which authors and readers also take part in – and surrounding the production, dissemination and reception of texts. In Marketing Literature, marketing is the summation of multiple agencies operating within the marketplace, by which contemporary writing is actively constructed.⁹

This definition also usefully reflects the particular complexity of seeking to market reading material; the factors that make books ‘different’ and that impact on publishers’ ability to communicate value; for example generic responses to publishing products that reflect long-standing attitudes to books studied but not enjoyed at school; convictions that writing is easy and that reading material should consequently be free. All these impact on the marketer’s ability to communicate the value and desirability of their range of goods.¹⁰

Today marketing is included within the publishing process from the outset, with particular attention paid to branding both lists and authors, in order to promote recognisability and perpetuate longer-term sales. Cover designers seek to offer category-clues to the buyer in a hurry; signalling through cover layout and supporting quotations that this is the type of book they have enjoyed in the past. Consistent analysis of longer-term trends has enabled the spotting of short-term marketing opportunities, for example the isolation of seasonality as an increasingly important marketing driver, and Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Halloween have emerged to challenge the publisher’s traditional Christmas jamboree, when up to 40 per cent of annual sales might be expected in just one month. In some markets these are highly specific, such as the association between Easter and new crime titles in Scandinavia.

It is also important to consider the significance of marketing personnel within the publishing industry. Publishing companies used to be run by editors; today they are largely run by marketers. There has also been an accompanying, and significant, cultural change, with an industry formerly characterised as one run by gentlemen opening up to the realities of business, including the social connotations of involvement in trade. The merits of this are debated. Some argue that high editorial standards are being sacrificed as firms spend ever-increasing amounts on pushing the product, irrespective of its merits. The th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Authors’ Forewords and Acknowledgements
• Foreword: David Shelley, CEO of Hachette UK
• Part I General Principles and Understanding
• Part II Putting Principles into Practice
• Part III Specific Advice for Particular Markets
• Appendix: GDPR and Privacy
• Bibliography
• Index