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

digital marketing - Gollancz

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. Like a bookish clash between Come Dine with Me and Whose Line is it Anyway?, each imprint has had a turn, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. I have so far blogged about Tor UK, Orbit UK and HarperVoyager. This post is about Gollancz.

GOLLANCZ

Website: Gollancz has a section on the Orion Publishing Group’s website (which they’re owned by). When I first started this blog, this part of their website, and their blog, were not updated very often. In recent months however, particularly as it’s their 50th anniversary year, Gollancz have hit their stride with their webpage and blog. On their main page you can find their book of the month and author of the month (including links to their previous books so you can buy them, the author’s website and information about them), a bestseller list specifically for their titles with clickable links to further information and ways to purchase them, a list of their upcoming events and a nice link to a webpage for their most popular series, Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books. They also have a ‘What’s hot’ section that contains recent news: this week, brilliantly, they’re in cahoots with National Blood Week – cross-promotional AND charity points, they’re also showcasing a trailer for their book of the month, Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper, a link to the Masterworks Reading Project, (old) news about Ian McDonald’s Dervish House being shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award (won by Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City) and a celebration of the last 25 years of the Arthur C Clarke Award (or should that be the first?). Gollancz does have a young adult page, although I’m just focusing on adult fiction here.

Blog: also on the Orion website, you will find the Gollancz blog. If you click through their archive, you’ll see there was a post in November, the next post wasn’t until April, and then you get to the May tab, and you’ll understand what I mean about a lack of activity until recently. Every day for a week in May they celebrated 50 years of Gollancz with a new blog post (I’m sure they did more than write a blog post, 50 years is a long time). They had a readers’ vote for their favourite titles, which is now closed, but this flurry of activity shows what can be done. However, I imagine it took a lot of time and resources, and it’s possible they’re another small team (the entire team seems to have written a post for this seven day session) that can’t afford to do this all the time. So, 50th anniversary points (admittedly, very particular to Gollancz). And it’s a shame that more can’t be done with the blog, because it is a great way to connect with readers, if they allowed for comments, and Joe Abercrombie’s post on George RR Martin shows its potential for entertainment. But that’s where, for Gollancz, Facebook comes in.

Facebook: this is where the digital marketing really happens for Gollancz. Their main technique is to run competitions for readers to win their titles (admittedly, this was more prevalent a few months back). Many competitions. They have all the competition points. It would be really interesting to find out how these competitions affect sales, if at all. I really hope they help sales, I think it’s a unique way of marketing, and great for smaller budgets (although the postage and packaging costs must be immense). You can really see the dedication of the marketing team (person?) here. They also post YouTube links to author interviews and trailers, flag up signings, reviews, post pictures, links to other relevant information they feel their readers will find interesting (points for not just talking about themselves), news about their award nominations, and just a whole host of other links and comments. Some stats: 1859 people ‘like’ their page, on average they post 2-3 times per day, and they have 1 sister Facebook page, Gollancz Dark Fantasy, which has 3526 ‘likes’ (and does much of the same, only with more of a focus on Charlaine Harris).

Twitter: here, as well as the beauty of hash tags, there is more of the same frequency of posts and topics as on the Facebook page. They have a Gollancz, Gollancz Dark Fantasy and a temporary account for their 50th anniversary. They also have mystery book quotes for followers to guess, tweets about events they’re currently attending (like the David Gemmell Awards – topical), and are just generally entertaining. They definitely know their way around a hash tag. Hash tag points.

Digital advances: Orion has a ‘Reading room’ area of their website, which is an ace way of promoting your titles, taking a cosy concept but making it digital. Here you can access sample PDFs of some of Gollancz’s titles, like Charlaine Harris’ Dead Reckoning. Cosy concept points.

Recently their author Charlaine Harris became the latest writer to exceed the 1m Kindle eBooks mark. So they’re doing well here, particularly with this author (the TV series possibly helps).

Gollancz have a digital publisher, Darren Nash, who promised the following back in August 2010 for Gollancz’s digital future: ‘enhanced e-books and apps, backlist projects, building virtual communities and developing online interaction through social media such as Twitter and blogs.’ I would definitely say that social media (barring the blog, perhaps) has taken off and looks to be going very strong. However, apps and enhanced eBooks haven’t yet shown their faces. In a blog post, their author Joe Abercrombie did mention a meeting with his editor that resulted in an absolutely amazing sounding eBook package, but I can’t find any further mention of it. I’m not sure about issuing ‘just around the corner’ points, but, what the heck, I’ll do it anyway.

Oh, and Amazon.co.uk shows that they have 391 eBooks published by Gollancz. That’s a good number.

Extras: the Orion Publishing Group has a general YouTube channel where you can find Gollancz trailers and author interviews. I can’t find many uploads by Gollancz, however, but it’s good that they’re utilising Orion’s page.

Conclusion: contain yourself - an exciting summary will follow shortly. Disclaimer: none of the imprints will win £1000 presented to them on a silver platter. They will not get to read out the end credits in the style of someone trying to propose just as their loved one discovers a beetle doing backstroke in their soup.

digital marketing - HarperVoyager

Over the next few weeks this blog is going to focus on what the four imprints I’m using as case studies for my dissertation do to digitally market their books. Like a bookish clash between Come Dine with Me and Whose Line is it Anyway?, each imprint gets a turn, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. This post is about HarperVoyager UK.

VOYAGER

One thing that I have not taken into account so far with blogging about Tor UK and Orbit UK’s digital marketing is business models. The term ‘business model’ tends to make my brain prepare to be imminently baffled, but what I mean by it here is pretty basic – the number of staff within the imprint and their roles. In Voyager’s case, having done work experience there, I know that there is a grand total of two staff members dedicated purely to this Science Fiction and Fantasy imprint, one of which handles the majority of the digital marketing. Solo points to her before we even begin.

Website: like Orbit, Voyager’s website is really a blog. While Orbit’s site is maintained in by a triumvirate of worldwide imprints (note: not as evil as it sounds), Voyager’s is hosted by HarperCollins and 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 (HBO’s TV adaptation - Game of Thrones, new covers, eBooks and the date for the upcoming, long-awaited A Dance With Dragons), countdown widgets for upcoming titles for blogs and websites, trailers, occasional book of the month (book of the every other month?), cover launches and a heads-up for their new venture into YA fiction, a post on their 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 – so community points to them.

As a side note, Voyager’s sister Australian imprint has a great site – complete with blog, online community, search engine, news and events listings and the tantalisingly titled ‘fun and games’. Who can resist such a tab?

HarperCollins hosts a page for Voyager on their main site. This contains links to the Voyager blog, as well as the Voyager Twitter feed, information about authors and their titles and upcoming books, and press releases. It’s not as updated as their blog, and while it is useful, it feels a bit more perfunctory, and not as welcoming as Voyager main. I will allot practical points for this.

Twitter: their Twitter page contains links to their 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. Points for letting people know when they’re going on holiday, or that they left their pen back at the office when they wanted to mark proofs on the bus.

Facebook: I can’t find a Facebook page for Voyager UK. If there is one and I’ve missed it, I’m sorry (although no points for hiding well).

Digital advances: thanks to HarperCollins’ dedication to all things digital, Voyager has a healthy backlist of digital titles available, although the books don’t have any additional interactive features. They get extra goodwill points however for taking advantage of the digital format for the benefit of their customers. George RR Martin’s beasts tend to be unbindable and a few have been released in two parts – but their digital editions have been combined. Voyager even went a step further and bound the whole 3000 page series so far together in one digital volume for a relatively cheap price.

Blog: see ‘Website’.

Extras: Voyager has a monthly newsletter and a YouTube channel, but it hasn’t been updated for a while. Points to them, but not as many as for a well-maintained channel (admittedly these values mean very little).

Conclusion: contain yourself - an exciting summary will follow after all four imprints have had their turn. Disclaimer: they will not win £1000 presented to them on a silver platter. They will not get to read out the end credits in the style of someone delivering urgent information to someone on a bouncy castle.

digital marketing - Orbit

Over the next few weeks this blog is going to focus on what the four imprints I’m using as case studies for my dissertation do to digitally market their books. Like a bookish clash between Come Dine with Me and Whose Line is it Anyway?, each imprint gets a turn, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. This post is about Orbit UK (and USA/Australia too).

ORBIT

Website: Orbit’s website is its hub for marketing, and what a hub. It streamlines the UK/USA/Australia 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. The site also contains a blog roll and links to SFF sites, and allows for comments on each post, maintaining a healthy online community. In a digital session for my MA Publishing, Orbit’s site was used as a prime example of what good digital marketing is. Assuming that our tutor must be an SFF fan, I approached him after class preparing for a full-on geek-out, only to be met with a firm, ‘Oh no, I’m not a fantasy fan. I just really like Orbit’s website.’ So it’s that good. Whether it means to or not, it’s catering to people outside of the usual ‘fan’ spectrum on its content alone. 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. Just this week, for example, there have been the following posts: fantasy author Helen Lowe waxing lyrical about why she loves martial arts; Lauren Panepinto launching the covers for Michael J. Sullivan’s The Riyria Revelations series (‘Bam! Can you say ‘EPIC’, people?’ – that’s what I mean by enthusiastic); Senior Editor Devi Pillai (USA) announcing the release of Brent Weeks’ straight-to-eBook-and-audio Perfect Shadow from Orbit’s short fiction venture; Mark Yon from SFFWorld continuing his guide to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files in the run up to the release of Ghost Story; Lauren Panepinto again, this time offering Simon Morden’s ‘magic eye’ book covers as wallpaper (which also forms part of Simon Morden’s digital marketing campaign); and finally Simon Morden himself explaining why London is the perfect setting for his post-apocalyptic trilogy. And that’s all just in one week. It really is a smorgasbord of information. There aren’t enough points for this, so I’m just going to say ‘many’.

Twitter: Orbit UK/USA/Australia have a joint Twitter account, which fits with their ‘international imprint’ shtick. Most of the staff who frequent the blog are on there, like UK editorial assistant James Long (716 followers) and commissioning editor Bella Pagan (528 followers). Here’s where the US/UK/Aus staff members communicate and re-tweet each other – forming a joint community by spreading stories from the blog, good reviews of Orbit’s author’s titles and Orbit’s latest marketing campaigns. ‘Community’ points and some general cool points thrown in for the publishing staff building up more followers than some authors.

Facebook: Orbit has a Facebook page, again it’s a joint one between the three worldwide imprints. 2,221 people like it. Here it puts up its website/blog posts up on the wall. As well as good reviews from bloggers for its titles, and blogged interviews with its authors. More ‘community’ points to Orbit, although there isn’t much interaction between the staff and readers on the wall. Orbit also has a Facebook page exclusively for its eBook short fiction (1,119 likes). Digital points.

Digital advances: Orbit short fiction – as already mentioned, Brent Weeks’ Perfect Shadow is eBook and audio-only. In the same manner, Orbit will also be publishing, amongst others, Jennifer Rardin, who sadly passed away last Autumn, and some of her short stories. There’s also a newsletter you can sign up to. This is a really great venture, but I wish it had chosen something other than a robot as its logo, purely because Angry Robot Books pretty much has robots covered, and Orbit’s store would stand out so much more from the competition if it had a logo that was more humanoid. There is more than one kind of dance.

Blog: see ‘Website’.

Extras: Orbit has its own YouTube channel where its videos include ‘making-ofs’ (like for Simon Morden’s optical illusion masterpieces), as well as book trailers and interviews. I’ve posted this before, but bloody hell the book trailer for Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels is good. Let’s enjoy it again together. Points galore. Orbit also has its own flickr account with book signing photos – although they’re three years out of date. There will be no points for this.

Conclusion: contain yourself - an exciting summary will follow after all four imprints have had their turn. Disclaimer: they will not win £1000 presented to them on a silver platter. They will not get to read out the end credits in the style of a news reader who is desperate for the loo.

digital marketing - Tor

Over the next few weeks this blog is going to focus on what the four imprints I’m using as case studies for my dissertation do to digitally market their books. Like a bookish clash between Come Dine with Me and Whose Line is it Anyway?, each imprint gets a turn, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. This post is about Tor UK.

TOR

Website: the imprint has a section on the Pan Macmillan website, but it works as a shop rather than a marketing tool (although it does contain a list of author events). This is unique for a publisher – to sell direct to customers and cut out the middle Amazon-man, so points to Tor for that. If you select a particular book by an author you can then go to a page specifically about the author, and subscribe to certain RSS feeds. More points.

Twitter: this site is Tor’s hub for marketing. Events will get mentioned, review links posted, pictures of tours, author ventures plugged (like China Miéville’s short story 'Covehithe' in the Guardian not long ago). Editorial Director of Tor Julie Crisp is always present on Twitter, tweeting their latest campaigns, communicating with readers and providing relevant links, whilst not being overly pushy about the books she’s publishing, so kudos points for that last part. Tor trends topics like #towelday – 25 May is Towel Day in memory of the great Douglas Adams - really taking advantage of what Twitter can do. Tor UK is on there too, obviously tweeting about subjects relating to their list, but with personality and, dare I say it, vim. They’re also using Twitter to advertise their competition in cahoots with SFX magazine for cover designing. More points to them.

Facebook: I can’t find their Facebook page, so I’ve assumed there isn’t one, or it’s nigh impossible to locate. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Digital advances: Amazon’s Kindle store lists 81 of their titles, and it can be assumed that this list is going to grow. They’re all ‘vanilla’ at the moment, however, in 2009 an anniversary iPhone app for Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was created that had plenty of special features. A Bookseller article from February 2008 details how Tor gave away free copies of some of their titles in eBook form to advertise a ‘website’, but it provides no further detail other than saying that readers were, understandably, pretty well-pleased. There are no other articles in the Bookseller that talk about Tor’s digital initiatives, and none that I can find elsewhere. It was a great start – but did it end here?

YouTube: ADDITION - When I wrote this I hadn't found Tor's YouTube page, which is part of Pan Macmillan's page - you can see trailers, interviews, TV appearances from their authors, and more. Points to them, and a few more because I missed it the first time around.

Blog: N/A

Extras: Tor UK do have an e-newsletter that you can sign up to, which is great, but it’s not released nearly as often as I’d like to receive it. Genre for Japan: the imprint offered a year’s supply of their books for the cause. Charity points to them.

Conclusion: contain yourself - an exciting summary will follow after all four imprints have had their turn. Disclaimer: they will not win £1000 presented to them on a silver platter. They will not get to read out the end credits in the style of a sports commentator.