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It's Noisy Online
PT Surveys Book Publicists and Their Media About Online Marketing

FROM PUBLISHING TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2008)

It’s unanimous. Publicists think online is the way to go for promoting their authors’ books, but before you cancel your next pub party, read on: Publishing Trends polled publicists at publishers, independent publicity firms, and agencies, and sent a companion survey to members of the book-related media to find out what publicists claim they’re doing, and what the media report they’re actually doing. Nearly all (70.9%) publicists said they devote up to 50% of their resources to online marketing. The remaining said they do even more.

But what, exactly, is online marketing? Is it applying the same techniques used in “traditional publicity” online? A matter of including bloggers and online reviewers on the publicity list? Or is it a total re-conceptualization of what book marketing is? Integrating podcasts, blogs, instant messages, photo-sharing, blogads, user-generated content, videos, social networking, widgets, Facebook apps in every book campaign?

Despite their embrace of all things digital, a surprising 50% of publicists think traditional media has the same impact now as two years ago, versus 35% of media people surveyed. And while 40% of publicists and 43% of media respondents said traditional media outlets have less impact, both groups chose NYTimes.com and PublishersWeekly.com as the most important general news site and book-related site for promoting books. These two, incidentally, were the only answers chosen that were not web-born.

Though the New York Times may still hold the biggest megaphone, every internet user has one too, and figuring out how to interact with all the new citizen reporters can be puzzling. A recent Times article (“Target Tells a Blogger to Go Away” 1/28/08) reported a blunder made by Target, a company known for sophisticated and congenial marketing. When a blogger approached the company’s PR team about an ad she found offensive, Target responded by saying it doesn’t participate in nontraditional media outlets. Infuriated bloggers and supportive journalists posted a lengthy thread of opinions in the comments section..

How to Talk to a Blogger
A rubric for pitching to and communicating with bloggers has yet to emerge, but, at least in the book industry, publicists know enough not to ignore them. “I think for a long time the unspoken rule was that pitches to online venues were more casually worded,” commented Sloane Crosley, Associate Director of Publicity at Vintage/Anchor and author of the forthcoming I Was Told There’d Be Cake (Riverhead), “but as blogs and websites become increasingly more vital to the life of a book—both through editorial content and through advertising—they’re being treated as such.”

Bloggers, on the other hand, think publicists have a way to go. Of media survey respondents, 40.4% were bloggers, which no doubt skewed the responses and amplified their annoyance in the results. “I hope/expect publishers will approach bloggers in the same way that they deal with print media [in the next two years]. In addition to the print review magazine I edit, I also have a literary blog, and the difference in approach (by publicists) can be dramatic,” said an anonymous staff reviewer at a book-centered print magazine.

To make things more complicated, the same approach used to deal with traditional media doesn’t necessarily work either. “I'm still not sure most PR folks get it,” says Joe Wikert, blogger at “Publishing 2020” (www.jwikert.typepad.com) and Vice President and Executive Publisher in the P/T division of Wiley. “I still come across publishers where I request a review copy of a title and they insist on a formal letter with official letterhead. I try to tell them that I don’t have letterhead for my blog but they tend to stick with their rules. It’s a lost opportunity for them, not just the PR on my blog, but for other blogs as well.”

Yet hope remains. A book-blogger optimistically predicted that the publishing industry will eventually find ways of adapting to the shifting media paradigm in which social networking, blogging, and all other new platforms give space to anyone who wants some. “Publicists will adopt smarter, more targeted practices as they realize that marketing to readers online isn’t the same as trying to reach as many people with as many big placements as possible,” the book-blogger commented. Online media everywhere are crossing their fingers.

Generally, the press materials that publicists say they’re sending is what the media say they’re receiving, with a few exceptions. Publishers report sending more emails to bloggers than bloggers recall receiving. “Like anything, [emails] should be more targeted. I get so many pitches that are laughably outside of my site’s interest,” reported a book-blogger who echoed the PR frustration that Chris Anderson infamously blogged about last October. They also report receiving the fewest press materials, which corresponds to publicist accounts. In addition to the 40.4% of bloggers, another 29.8% of media respondents defied categorization (often publisher by day, blogger by night, or vice versa), 19.1% were staff reviewers at print/online magazines, and 10.6% were freelancers. Publicists still send galleys and catalogs more often to print newspapers and magazines than their online counterparts.

The Times vs. YouTube
Despite the smashing success of viral videos in other industries, publishing hasn’t figured out how to shoot a book through YouTube, though authors want to see it happen. “At the time I wrote my book, the emphasis was on websites—author ones, and also those of organizations or groups that might be interested in a particular book,” said Lissa Warren, author of The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity (Carroll & Graf 2004), and VP, Senior Director of Publicity, and Acquiring Editor at Da Capo, “but the scope of most book-related web outreach has expanded …. I’ve even had authors asking me about YouTube lately.” Less than 5% of publicity respondents said they send any kind of video to publicize a new title. A handful of publishers put out book trailers and author interviews such as Simon & Schuster’s BookVideos.tv [see “Wunderwidgets,” PT Nov 07], but according to survey results, most major publishers have yet to experiment with more daring promotions. “Titlepage,” former RH Editor-in-Chief Daniel Menaker’s new online author interview show, might inspire them to do more. (It debuts on March 3rd at titlepage.tv)

Producing a video that will capture the attention of the masses can be a crapshoot at best not to mention costly, yet a little bit of personalization and viral magic brought OfficeMax a lot of exposure in the last two years with Elf Yourself. AdAge reported that 26.4 million people, or nearly one in 10 Americans, elfed themselves. Tracking results reveal that the majority of elfees indicated brand awareness too.

What would happen if an author’s book didn’t get a review in the NYTimes and yet her viral video got 100,000 views on YouTube? Even though publicists seem to be asking this question, using funds earmarked for a full-page ad in USA Today to produce an avant-garde video for a new title seems a bit too risky.

Nevertheless, many survey respondents risked hyperbole and dispensed with traditional media altogether. “It’s almost like we don’t need the media anymore,” said a publicist at a mid-size publisher of “enthusiast” books. “Let HarperCollins and Random House deal with them.” For this publisher, shifting focus means funneling money ordinarily spent on direct mailings and print ads into a revamped website that will be more e-commerce, social network, and community photo-sharing site than a catalog translated to HTML.

The publisher seems to be getting it right with the revamped website since it capitalizes on the strengths of enthusiast categories. A community-based site follows from the titles they publish, namely books on social hobbies such as fishing, cooking, and sewing. “Crafters and knitters are big talkers; they talk about projects and books while they’re in their knitting circles around the fireplace,” said the publicist. “They’re naturally inclined to share with each other.” The new site will include a place for users to post photos of projects completed from one of the publisher’s titles, behind-the-scenes photo essays featuring popular authors, and forums for crafty people to share tips or frustrations relating to a certain project. Plus, the “link love” generated by links to the publisher’s other imprints and popular related sites will no doubt increase visibility even without a mention in the PW.

Cautionary Tales
In the paradigm shift, jumping on any digital bandwagon that comes along just to cover your bases is as much a waste of resources as messenger-ing six galleys to six misspellings of a reviewer’s name (in an informal poll, traditional media reported this happens ridiculously often). And the frenzied media that built up Second Life in a day have spent the past year watching it crumble, at least as the utopian marketplace many thought it would be. So the advice of Susan Raab, a children’s and parenting book publicist at Raab Associates, to weigh your online options before taking a leap not only reflects the typical innovation hesitation of the book industry, but the importance of timing in any digital endeavor.

Paradoxically, the fast-paced online buzz that seduces publicists and audience alike is also permanent. Raab pointed out that in the past several years she has started to use a lot more care when writing press releases that will eventually end up online. One of her authors wrote a controversial book and inadvertently had attracted the wrong audience by including inappropriate keywords that had been picked up by search engines. And more than ever when marketing to kids, especially on social networking sites, authenticity is key. “Every [social network] has its own regulations on how much a commercial entity can interact with kids,” she said. “Kids also want authenticity; they know more and more when they’re being marketed to.”

In a survey conducted by The Keller Fay Group, 19% of teen word-of-mouth happens online versus 7% for adults. 57% of the teen respondents said that marketing and media topics crop up in conversations compared to 48% for adults. Whether these stats can be attributed to youth itself or how the next generation will continue to interact with the world is up for debate. One blogger respondent to the PT survey recognized a permanent change. “In a few years, these teens are going to be the target audience for all book marketing,” he said. “I see most, but certainly not all, book advertising online. Look at teen authors—they've got it down; they market on MySpace, on their own blogs, and even on other blogs, plus they blog on Amazon.”

Of Course, You Still Can’t Ignore Traditional Media
The majority (72%) of publicists said the number of cities on an author tour have gone down in the past two years, while 86.8% of publicists think that blog tours are up. Yet even the most digitally zealous, the ones who initially declared traditional media washed up nobodies, tended to qualify enthusiasm with “well, of course a mention in the NYTimes still sells a lot of books.”

For more information, contact Sara Huneke at sara@publishingtrends.com
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©2008 Publishing Trends