digital marketing - science fiction and fantasy

Over the last few weeks this blog has been focusing on what the four imprints I’m using as case studies for my dissertation do to digitally market their books. As promised, this is the exciting* summary of my findings, looking at which imprint out of the four – Tor, Orbit, Voyager and Gollancz – most effectively uses digital marketing to promote its authors and titles. Here are the results.

TOR

With no blog, a Facebook page I can’t find (although I’ve heard rumour of there being one) and an area on the Pan Macmillan website that is more shop than shoptalk, Twitter is Tor’s hub for digital marketing. Events will get mentioned, review links posted, pictures of tours and author ventures plugged. Editorial Director of Tor Julie Crisp is always present on Twitter, tweeting Tor’s latest campaigns, communicating with readers and providing relevant links, whilst not being overly pushy about the books she’s publishing. She helps to trend topics like #towelday – 25 May is Towel Day in memory of the late, great Douglas Adams - really taking advantage of what Twitter (and fans) can do. Tor UK is on there too, tweeting about subjects relating to its list with personality and a good degree of vim. Tor is also using Twitter to advertise its competition in cahoots with SFX magazine for cover designing – a unique way of promoting a title. Some stats: Tor’s Twitter stream has 1424 followers, Julie Crisp, clearly doing something right, has 1520. I recently heard that Tor has been allotted the budget for a new blog, so it’s obviously deemed an important tool in digital marketing – it will be great to see what Tor does with it.

ORBIT

Orbit UK has a larger team than most other dedicated science fiction and fantasy imprints, with various folk in charge of digital, publicity and general marketing, and Orbit USA and Aus/NZ banding together as well to digitally market as a global imprint, which is worth bearing in mind. Although it has a strong Twitter and Facebook presence, the most remarkable part of Orbit’s digital marketing strategy is its website. Orbit’s website is its hub for marketing, and what a hub. It streamlines the UK/USA/Aus/NZ imprints into one, accessible source of information. As well as containing its publishing schedules and author profiles (with links to websites and details about its titles), Orbit’s website is basically a very well-maintained blog. It contains, among other things, guest posts from authors (not always from Orbit’s own list), editors, editorial assistants and the very excellent, always enthusiastic, Art Director Lauren Panepinto. The site also contains a blog roll and links to SFF sites, and allows for comments on each post, maintaining a healthy online community. It really is a smorgasbord of information. Some stats: Facebook – 2292 likes. Orbit Twitter – 8727 followers. Orbit Editorial Assistant James Long Twitter account – 801 followers.

VOYAGER

Bearing in mind Voyager’s small team, it doesn’t have a Facebook page and its page on HarperCollins’ website is a bit impersonal (in-keeping with the overall professional image), but it does have a Twitter and blog, maintained mainly by one dedicated Assistant Editor, and a few guest bloggers. There tends to be about one to two posts every fortnight, and they can consist of: reviews from HarperCollins’ staff members of Voyager’s books, an huge ongoing campaign for George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, countdown widgets for upcoming titles for blogs and websites, trailers, the occasional book of the month, cover launches, a heads-up for its new ventures, a post on its physical consumer marketing campaign for Peter V Brett and a few non-marketing related posts, which arguably is good digital marketing in itself. The blog/site also contains links to other sites and every post can be commented on. Its Twitter account contains links to its blog posts as well as plenty of perky communication with fellow tweeters and readers, particularly considering there is only one person behind the tweets. What I like about this (warning: personal preference) is that HarperCollins is a hugely commercial publisher but the Voyager feed feels personal. Some stats: Twitter – 2577 followers.

GOLLANCZ

Gollancz does not have a strong blog presence although its website is good, and the team know how much time it can exhort updating it (hence its book and author of the month). Therefore Gollancz’s strengths lie in its Facebook and Twitter presence. Its main technique is to run competitions for readers to win its titles (admittedly, it hammered this more a few months back). It would be really interesting to find out how these competitions affect sales, if at all, as I think it’s a unique way of marketing, and great for smaller budgets (although the postage and packaging costs must be immense). Gollancz also: knows the beauty of a good hash tag, posts YouTube links to author interviews and trailers, flags up signings, reviews, posts pictures, links to other relevant information it feels its readers will find interesting (rather than making the rookie error of only talking about itself), news about its award nominations, and a whole host of other links and comments. Some stats: 1865 people ‘like’ its Facebook page, on average Gollancz posts 2-3 times per day, and it has one sister Facebook page, Gollancz Dark Fantasy, which has 3608 ‘likes’ (thank you, Charlaine Harris). Gollancz Twitter has 3144 followers, and Gollancz Dark Fantasy Twitter has 977. This might only be something I find fascinating, but this shows Dark Fantasy fans are more likely to follow its Facebook page than its Twitter stream, and vice versa for Gollancz main.

Conclusion of summary: Every imprint has its own way and knows how to digitally market its books into a reader’s heart. Unfortunately, man power, time and money are huge factors regarding what avenues you can take. Hence why Twitter and Facebook, being free, are great tools.

Active, healthy blogs look to be the way forward. Orbit’s just zings off the screen. Voyager’s is good, and would benefit from more time and posts (not always an option when one person is doing the posting), Tor’s is on its way. Gollancz could benefit from updating its blog more – but time factors probably get in the way so it picks and chooses when it utilizes this tool (eg, for its 50th anniversary).

Voyager and Tor (I may be wrong) both don’t have Facebook pages. Gollancz demonstrates why it’s important to reach fans both through Twitter and Facebook, through its discrepancies between Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter followers.

With Twitter it is worth the editors and other staff having personal accounts that tweet about the industry. Julie Crisp has more followers than Tor UK but it’s probably a surety that she achieves the same promotional benefits for Tor’s titles as Tor’s actual Twitter stream, only people can feel more connected to an actual person, rather than an imprint.

Both Voyager and Orbit have a brand of their own away from their publishing groups – this could be important as it builds and taps into that essential fan community. They both also have less ‘personal’ pages on their publishing groups’ sites, so this caters for a wider readership.

Conclusion of conclusion of summary: Orbit’s model of digital marketing is fantastic. They demonstrate the ideal Twitter/Facebook/blog/website combination – all regularly updated and mostly interactive. But time and budget are huge factors that not every imprint can indulge in, which is where the personal touch, and a bit of ingenuity, comes in.

*Excitement not guaranteed

London Book Fair 2011: a student's experience

#LBF11: the London Book Fair – a summation of my own experience as a student on an MA Publishing course wishing to ask Science Fiction and Fantasy editors a series of questions for my dissertation, and as an exhibitor on my university press (very small) stand.

Day one:

Steeled myself for targeting the Gollancz/Orion stand first. Got to front desk, woman told me that Hachette Livre don’t own Gollancz. I apologised profusely and bimbled away. A quick Google check later and I was back: ‘Excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, but it appears you do own Gollancz. I can see them over there. On your stand…’ Woman looks at me in silence. A man leaps up to me with an Orion ID badge and directs me over to the lovely Gillian Redfearn, who saw me last year too, and who willing submitted to my abysmal interview ‘techniques’.

Tried Orbit/Little, Brown. Was told no one could see me. Asked about James Long, the new editorial assistant. Was told to come back on Tuesday when he’d be happy to answer my questions.

Tried HarperCollins, same girls who were on the front desk last year, uber tall, thin and stylish and looked at each other when I asked if I could see Emma Coode. Without checking, they told me she wasn’t on the stand, they didn’t know when she would be on the stand, and had no knowledge of her schedule. I stumbled awkwardly away with my many bags, feeling very northern, uncool and old.

Came back later with a friend from my course and saw HarperCollins were having a drinks reception. Recognised someone from my work experience and latched on to him. We grabbed a glass of champagne each and headed for the huddle in the centre of the stand. It’s all about confidence. It also helped that we’d already fortified ourselves with wine (note: not recommended if you wish to retain your dignity). Ate small sandwiches.

Day two:

Headed straight for Little, Brown and spoke to James Long. He didn’t have time to see me so gave me his email address. At some point during our conversation I took one hopeful step onto their stand, he didn’t move back, so whilst maintaining eye contact I carefully stepped back off it again, hoping he didn’t noticed the difference in my height. Awkward.

Went to a seminar where Philip Pullman was on the panel. Afterwards he signed World Book Night books. There were five of us left in the queue when the next seminar was due to start, so Pullman gestured for us all to follow him outside of the room. Happily, the five of us trailed after him across Earl’s Court 1, wondering where he was leading us, only to stop short as he went into the men’s toilet. We hot-footed it back to the seminar room, where we pretended we had been all along when he came back and kindly signed our books for us. If he’d noticed he’d been followed, he politely didn’t mention it.

Tried Angry Robot Books/Osprey stand to try to speak to Mike Ramalho. I had my ‘student’ badge eyed up by a very well-dressed man and was told to ‘Watch out for him in the aisles’ as he wasn’t on the stand. Rather than admit that the only way I was going to know what Ramalho looked like was to shout his name loudly and see who turned around, I thanked the man and walked away with poise (in my mind).

Went back to my own stand (recalling I was there to work) and helped some MA students out with their questions. As they were leaving one said, ‘Thank you for speaking to us like we are people.’

Accidentally ended up in a ‘Getting ahead in publishing’ talk, for people who already worked in publishing. Slightly embarrassing, especially as I bumped into a girl from the Little, Brown stand who had been lovely to me the day before, when I’d quite clearly explained to her that I was a student. I nodded to her and took my seat. It really is all about confidence (or, in my case, ignorance).

Day three:

Decided to try my luck with Orbit one last time. ‘Did you speak to James?’ / ‘Yes, he told me to email him.’ Slight pause. ‘Well… do that then.’ Yes, I did feel like an idiot, but you have to be persistent at the LBF and sometimes, sometimes it pays off. Which means that the majority of the time, you do look like an idiot. Or a stalker. I felt like they were mentally filling in the restraining order every time they saw me on the approach (signed, the Little, Brown stand and witnessed by the HarperCollins stand).


There was one last stand to try. Tor UK/Macmillan. Surely, they wouldn’t speak to me. But I had to get rejected by the last publisher on my list or I’d feel like I hadn’t truly put myself through the wringer. I approached warily. The women on the desk immediately put me at ease. Julie Crisp hadn’t arrived yet but of course they would take my details to pass on. I wasn’t made to feel naive for asking for some of the Editorial Director’s time, they were just happy to help. Then, Julie arrived. The girls on the desk leapt over to her and asked for a moment of her time. She’d had a cancellation, she was happy to withstand my incredibly awkward interview ‘skills’. Persistence. It does sometimes pay off. Luck helps too. But after those, you’re on your own.

The London Book Fair – stressful, and full of disappointments, adrenalin rushes, and that giddying feeling of achievement when you hit the right stand, at the right moment. I love it.

And finally, a vow. If I ever do get into publishing, and I end up on the other side of a publisher’s stand at the LBF, I will always endeavour to speak to students when I have the chance, or explain to them if I cannot. Let’s say it together, everybody: Students – they’re people too.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Voyager: are very excited about the upcoming HBE adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones with Sean Bean in the lead. They’ve released a TV-tie in cover. I’m mainly showcasing this because I put a full stop in there on my work experience. I feel that, overall, it has made the reading experience better. OK so it was in the prelims, but seriously, you'll thank me for it.

Tor UK: have provided an extract from China Miéville’s upcoming science fictioner Embassytown (due to be released in May). Read and enjoy! Here’s a bit of blurb for you too (you’re welcome):

Embassytown, a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.

Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts.

And that is impossible.

SF Signal: this is just an amazingly comprehensive site for all things SFF. Compared to SF Signal, my blog doesn’t even register on the radar, it’s just a bit of fluff on the screen that someone could eradicate with a little puff (that’s a quick blow, not a tiny, slightly offensive stereotype, obviously). An unbelievable amount of time and effort must go into this web of knowledge. Sad to say I’ve only just cottoned on to its weekly roundup of free science fiction and fantasy available on the internet. They do the research and I get to say ‘Look, free things!’ Grab a coffee and enjoy.

SFX magazine: speaking of great blogs, SFX have just launched the voting for their first ever Blog Awards. They’re celebrating ‘the best that SF and fantasy fan-driven and insider-developed internet activity has to offer.’ The shortlist is already there. You can pick from six categories: Best SFF Podcast, Best Fan Community, Best SF News Blog, Best Literary Blog (which SF Signal is in), Best Franchise Specific Site and Best Celebrity Blog. I was, of course, a very near shoe-in for that last one, just missing out to the likes of Neil Gaiman and Orbit author Kate Griffin, who is part writer, part lighting technician. She also prone to lengthy, enjoyable posts about anything.

Orbit: last week announced a new short story venture. Curiously, they’re using a robot logo and Angry Robot too have ‘nanos’, short stories available for download only from their authors, something that’s obviously catching on. That’s my passive aggressive way of implying that the robot could be replaced with something less robot-y. Like a tiger. Or they could stick with what works. Orbit’s short stories will also only be available as eBooks from a variety of eBook retailers. No prices yet, but some authors have already been listed, including Mira Grant and Jennifer Rardin. I do love short stories and these do seem perfect for reading on an eReader or an iPhone so it does seem like they might be the gateway drug to full-blow eAddiction. But I just can’t bring myself to part with the physical copy just yet. I still love the way I have to carry an extra bag to work, and how it squishes my sandwiches and banana to a pulp by the time I arrive (banan-dwiches).

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Tor: Amanda Rutter (Floor to ceiling books) did a blog post called ‘We are the main stream’ that received some contention on Twitter, particularly from Tor Editorial Director, Julie Crisp. To sum, Amanda’s post stated that as SFF already has a surfeit of awards, the Man Booker Prize don’t need to recognise the genre for it to be considered mainstream, that it already has seen enough success – The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight – for it to be the mainstream now. Julie Crisp’s point against this was that literary fiction awards like the Man Booker are exclusive when it comes to SFF and it would be advantageous to be recognised by them: ‘Because like it or not, prizes sell books, raise brand recognition, get great PR and attract mainstream readers’. This is why I’m writing my dissertation on the topic of SFF, stigma, and the genres gaining mainstream recognition. Why is there a divide between literary fiction and Science Fiction and Fantasy? Do we quit moaning about it and accept that SFF can no more be awarded a Man Booker than literary fiction could win a Hugo? Or do we look at Attwood’s The Blind Assassin and, as part of it is a Science Fiction novel, claim it as our own?

Voyager: Science Fiction author and blogger Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, For the Win), was interviewed by the BBC this week in the business section for his ‘How free translates to business survival’ philosophy when it comes to DRM. In order to survive in this digital age, he advises that content should be given away free, to benefit both the customer and the author. DRM prevents purchasers from sharing and easily moving content between platforms and individuals are going to pirate anyway, so why not get in there first and generate some positive publicity from it? Doctorow practises what he preaches: his eBooks are available free of charge. Because, ‘By making my books available for free pass-along, I make it easy for people who love them to help other people love them.’ But what about the publisher? Doctorow states the hope is that giving his content away free will encourage people to buy the paperback version because at least they now know he exists. This is an interesting concept, however, although the paperback sales might increase, his titles won’t feature in the eBook market, or, tragically, Amazon’s Kindle recommends or on iTunes’ bestseller list.

Orbit: feel the Jim Butcher love. Orbit had a competition a while back (that I missed) for fans to wax lyrical about their love for Jim and they’ve posted a selection of their favourite responses. Not that I have beef with this (what does that saying mean?), but their, albeit randomly selected winner, had this to say: ‘I devoured them over the space of three weeks! I cannot get enough of them.’ Like I said, no beef here. I just thought I’d share that particular winning gem. Still, it’s got to be better than the embarrasingly excitable: ‘One of the few series I’ve stayed loyal to.’ OK, I admit it. There is a smidgeon of beef. More interesting to you, they’re offering chapter one of upcoming Ghost Story free to read. I always refuse to do this as I want every single word to be new when I’ve waited so long for it (it has also not escaped my notice that Ghost Story is now due out in August. Cry.)

Bookshelf porn: seriously, this is hot stuff. Just check out these utterly beautiful (although perhaps not errotically so) book shelves and collections. I want the one with the bike on it. If this is porn, my book collection, currently occupying most of the wardrobe, drawers, under-the-bed space and floor, is the equivalent of the slightly sticky bargain bin that even the perverts avoid.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Tor: What is it about cake and books? Atom did it (I’ve just looked at my blog post about that and realised that sometimes I am a total nerd. And not one of those cool nerds, either), and now Tor UK have had an event to celebrate the reissuing of China Miéville’s backlist covers by putting them onto cakes. And they’re right to – designed by Crushed, these new covers are gorgeous, and delicious. They remind me of Neil Gaiman’s now not-so-new covers, with the black background and delicate illustrations embossed with coloured foil. Well, sort of.

Voyager: contain yourselves, epic fantasy fans; George RR Martin’s A Dance with Dragons is going to be published by Voyager on 12 July 2011. Believe that date, it’s actually real this time. It’s book five in A Song of Ice and Fire, a series so excellently executed and horrifically detailed that if, like me, you have a memory that quails at the thought of recalling more than one thing at once, you have four months to re-read the previous books. Or watch the upcoming HBO series Game of Thrones for a reminder sesh; it does have Sean Bean in it. I hear his contracts now state that, should there be a death scene, it must be at least 15 minutes in length. True story. Except for the lies.

Orbit/A Dribble of Ink: Aiden Moher over at A Dribble of Ink interviewed Orbit author Daniel Abraham (The Dragon’s Path, The Long Price Quartet) and the interview treaded close to my dissertation topic. Namely, the accessibility of the genre to people who aren’t necessarily SFF fans (differentiating this, but not altogether separating it, from the commercialisation of the genre). It also brought out Abraham’s irritation for people who want to look sophisticated through their bookshelf, whether they’re reading what’s on it or not (a personal pet hate). Abraham encourages the kind of SFF people might prefer to read via the anonymity of their eReader: ‘There is something at the base of genre – and it’s commercial and accessible and low-class and embarrassing – that brings people to what we do, and I think writers turn away from that at our peril.’ Abraham dubs this – and he’s not alone in this definition – as ‘guilty pleasures’ reading. He encourages writers to write ‘what people are ashamed to love’. Perhaps this is the value of eBooks to SFF. And its more adventurous readers. Perhaps Erotic Fantasy will get its (discrete) moment.

Gollancz: Orion publicity assistant Louise Court has given an interview on her role with Orion and Gollancz on the Book Chick City blog. This is just a lovely insight into her role and her first love, the written word. She also gets in a few plugs for their Urban Fantasy list – well, she is a publicity assistant, after all.

Arther C Clarke Award: the shortlist was announced on March 4 and is as follows:

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (Walker)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
Generosity by Richard Powers (Atlantic)
Declare by Tim Powers (Corvus)
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)

I believe I have some reading to do…

best of the best: top Fantasy books of 2010

Some of these books have not strictly been released in 2010 (read: were definitely not released in 2010 – Fantasy Book News, I’m looking at you with Brian Sanderson’s 2005 Elantris on the list), but I don’t make the rules so these are – loosely – what a (random) selection of SFF sites and bloggers have listed as their top five books of 2010 (regardless of whether they have actually been released in 2010). Following in the spirit of things (i.e. disregarding the publication date entirely), I have added my own ‘best science fiction and fantasy books of 2010 (not necessarily released in 2010)’ to the list. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the data to fit nicely into a chart (preferably pie), but here it is in startling boring tabular form. I’ve highlighted recurring books in the same colour, although none occur in the same position in more than one list, so as an experiment this probably failed. So here’s what we learn from an exercise that took a startling long time to carry out: favourite books are relative, Tor dominate USA-side, Orbit and Gollancz are pretty much equal (in a small selection of unrelated best-of lists, one of which I realised after is purely a nominee list but I decided to keep it in anyway for data analysis/padding), I’d like to read Stephen Donaldson’s Against All Things Ending by Gollancz as it looks fabulous and if you are going to colour code a table in order to highlight recurring themes it’s probably best not to do this in a table that already has colours in it. Enjoy!

Websites used: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Fantasy Book Critic, Publishers’ Weekly, Good Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Fantasy Book News, SFGate, Fantasy Faction and me.

Website	1	2	3	4	5
Amazon.co.uk	Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan (Orbit)	Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Orbit)	Against All Things Ending by Stephen Donaldson (Gollancz)	The Ambassador's Mission by Trudi Canavan (Orbit)	The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton (MacMillan)
Amazon.com	Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (Ace Books)	Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan (Tor)	Changes by Jim Butcher (Roc)	Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs (Ace)	Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton (Berkley)
Fantasy Book Critic	Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Orbit)	The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking)	The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)	The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker (Orbit)	Aurorarama Jean-Christophe Valtat (Melville House Publishing)
Publishers' Weekly	The Bone Palace by Amanda Downum (Orbit)	Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)	The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit)	Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Daw)	A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter by Peter Straub (Pegasus Books)
Good Reads (Nominees - winners announced soon)	The Way of Kings by Brian Sanderson (Gollancz)	Kraken by China Miéville (Pan)	The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (Orbit)	The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman	The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett (Harper Voyager)
Kirkus Reviews	The Bird of the River by Kage Baker (Tor)	Bearers of the Black Staff by Terry Brooks (Orbit)	Side Jobs by Jim Butcher (Orbit)	The Palace of Impossible Dreams by Jennifer Fallon (Tor)	Shadows in the Cave by Caleb Fox (Tor)
Fantasy Book News	Lamentation by Ken Scholes (Tor)	The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz/ Orbit USA)	Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)	Daemon by Daniel Suarez (Quercus)	Elantris by Brian Sanderson (Tor)
SFGate.com	Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker (Tor)	The Passage by Justin Cronin (Orion UK)	Planetary: Spacetime Archaeology by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday (DC Comics)	Horns by Joe Hill (Gollancz)	Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Fantasyfaction.com	The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett (Harper Voyager)	The Way of Kings by Brian Sanderson (Gollancz)	Spellwright by Blake Charlton (HarperVoyager)	The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (Orbit)	Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz/ Orbit USA)
Me	Changes by Jim Butcher (Orbit)	Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot Books)	Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (Corgi)	The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobbs (HarperVoyager)	The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Orbit)