Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
University press marketing and advertising staff are expanding their ventures into the realm of online advertising. With an ever-expanding variety of options, from Facebook ads for dollars a day to leaderboards on the websites of renowned print publications, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. AAUP spoke with staff at three member presses to get an idea of how member presses of various sizes are evaluating and investing in these new opportunities.
While presses are experimenting with different approaches, one common theme was their initial reason for moving into online advertising: following their customers. Dafina Blacksher Diabate, Advertising Manager at Duke University Press, described Duke’s use of online advertising as “a matter of meeting the readers where they are.” Figuring out exactly where those readers are online, however, is a less obvious matter. One of the biggest challenges for presses just entering the online realm is the seemingly infinite venues well beyond online versions of the print publications they have traditionally advertised in.
Particularly when advertising scholarly titles, Diabate has found that a good amount of research time is required to evaluate the various options, although she has found it worth it in the end. Duke has advertised in a variety of online formats, but one that Diabate feels is particularly effective is the e-newsletter. As such newsletters are opt-in forms of communication, readers have chosen to receive it and have a confirmed interest in whatever the targeted subject matter might be. She especially prefers ad placement at the top of these newsletters, which ensures that the ad is seen even by those who do not scroll down to read the whole message.
Baylor University Press, which Associate Director and Product and Sales Manager Nicole Smith Murphy says began to think more strategically about online advertising in the summer of 2009, has found success with small, targeted campaigns. Baylor focuses particularly on “pay-per-click ads within Facebook, Google AdWords, Twitter promotions and announcements, and blocks of advertising within [their] own e-newsletters.”
Murphy described a shift away from their original tendency to view books with wider general reader appeal as the best candidates for online advertising. She has found that as scholarly societies, institutions, and publications have become more web savvy, targeting specific groups has become more feasible and beneficial. The press recently ran a Facebook ad for Liberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition by Christopher Evans, targeting “users who identified a likeness for or an affiliation with several key liberal to progressive divinity schools and seminaries.” Spending under $400, the press has received 742,986 impressions of the book’s cover with brief copy and received 865 click-throughs – results Murphy classifies as “hard to match in print publications.”
Florida has pursued online advertising since 2006, and has used a variety of formats including web sites, newsletters, Facebook ads, and Google AdWords (which they found to not be adequately targeted for their purposes). This year, they will also be trying a regional take on web advertising, participating in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s “Circle of Sites” promotion, which will place their ad on the sites of “approximately 45 independent bookstores for a week.”
The possibility of targeting advertising to ever more granular groups of readers is an aspect of online advertising where presses have taken different approaches. Florida “consistently seek[s] the most targeted media and placement for our advertising,” only opting for generalized placement when dictated “by the media itself.” Diabate however, is sometimes wary of targeting that can be too narrow, in the cases of niche sites, which might have fewer general visitors.
On the design side, production of online ads brings its own challenges, particularly when ad design is done, or brought, in-house. Amy Harris, Advertising and Direct Mail Manager at the University Press of Florida, explained that when the press moved to designing web ads in-house last year, some challenges became evident, as “most of the process—from image management to layout to proof—is slightly different from print design and may require knowledge of a separate suite of design programs.” When Duke added an in-house ad designer, they made sure to include banner ad design as part of the hiring criteria.
The increased restrictions on design for the web in comparison to print are a concern that can add to the work of creating an online ad, as designers must use web-safe colors, fonts, and formats, and ensure that the ad will display correctly in an array of browsers. At Duke, size limits on some banner ads have caused the press to alter their approach.
Diabate noted that she found the shorter lifetime of online ads to be a drawback, in contrast to print ads, which she finds more “researchable,” as readers are able to refer back to a publication long after its initial release.
Among the presses interviewed, there seems to be a consensus that while online advertising is inevitably becoming a larger portion of the overall advertising budget, they do not see print advertising disappearing in the near future. At Florida, Harris has found that directly attributable sales were “roughly the same” for print and web ads when tracked through discount codes. The challenge at the moment, Duke’s Diabate says, is “finding a happy medium.” Harris explains that she sees “the butter being spread ever thinner on the bread…the truth is, we reach our customers through both formats. The key will be to judiciously choose our outlets.” This is, in a sense, a balancing act that advertising departments have been dealing with for years, but the pool of possible venues continues to grow.
While the data-gathering potential of online advertising, such as tracking views and click-throughs, has its appeal, presses say it is not generally a driving choice behind their advertising choices. Harris explained that the most important reason for moving to web ads is “following our customers,” but metrics like click-throughs do offer a “measure of the audience’s engagement with advertising, so they should be taken into account in any well-run promotion.”
Murphy believes that online advertising can work for even the smallest of presses, and advises those considering testing the waters to “just set aside a little money and start doing it.” The small scale of some options allows for close monitoring and tweaking when necessary – she found that two of the most important components were having a “good landing page” for links (your website or another retailer) and ensuring that those links are functional. Baylor typically “set[s] an initial limit of $20 per day” for their campaigns, and after a few days either refines the message or ups the per diem, a process that Murphy describes as “quite helpful on-the-job education.”
The field of online advertising is still very much in development, and for this reason Diabate sees an opportunity for publishers to play an important role in the way it develops. Saying, “we’re forging into uncharted territory,” she feels that marketing instincts still play an important role, and that for university presses, it is “worth being in on the conversation,” helping publications to understand where scholarly publishers are coming from.
Harris advises presses: “Don’t be (too) afraid. With careful planning, the right tools, and a little training you’ll find that online advertising is manageable and worthwhile.” As Murphy emphasized, “With online ads, your potential readers are only one click away from being able to make a purchase.”
A number of publications within the AAUP Cooperative Advertising Program have begun offering discounted rates on their online advertising rates to AAUP members. Learn more here: http://www.aaupnet.org/members/advertising/index.html
Colleen Lanick
Publicity Manager, MIT Press
We live in a time where we ask a new acquaintance to “friend” us rather than exchanging phone numbers. National news programs routinely receive tweets containing questions from viewers during news segments and baseball mascots hold up signs that say “Follow me” and list a Twitter handle. Social networking sites have become a powerful source for virtually all of our news and entertainment needs. Recently, I noticed a tweet from a colleague that simply said, “Princeton University Press is now on Facebook. Twitter, Facebook—next the world! muahahaah.” Amusing and perhaps a little diabolical, but it is evidence that the university presses, from Cambridge to British Columbia, have embraced and started to harness the power of social media.
A quick and unscientific survey of several university presses confirmed that most are using some form of social networking, and that the majority are using Facebook and Twitter. A few have pages on MySpace, Good Reads, and other smaller sites, although presses are not generally as active on these sites. Social networking pages are easy to set up, but once the account has been registered and images uploaded, the challenge becomes how to use these incredibly popular and influential sites in a way that fits into current publicity and promotion for specific titles and the press as a whole.
When we first launched Facebook and Twitter pages at MIT Press, we were very aware that we were The MIT Press, not an individual, and had to be careful about how we presented ourselves. The goal is to become part of the community, not alienate it with hard sales or elaborate marketing pitches. Our pages started as an experiment to try to connect with readers who might be using social media, but we never expected them to be as successful as they are—we currently have about 5,000 fans on Facebook and over 2,600 followers on Twitter.
Our primary goal is to put a face on the press and allow our personality to shine through. We try to respond to all comments and questions and encourage interaction with our readers. For a special Facebook feature, we interviewed our acquisitions editors about how they got started in publishing and what kind of books they were interested in. Recently, we asked our fans on Facebook to comment on their memories of the Atari video game. We had a new book on the topic and offered free copies to the first five people to wax nostalgic in our comments section. More than a dozen comments were posted in just a matter of hours. We have a handful of fans and followers who consistently comment on a particular subject area. Of MIT’s list, technology, environment, and art titles generally see the most activity.
The University of Arizona Press, like many presses, joined Facebook first, and opened a Twitter account more recently. Kathryn Conrad, Arizona’s Interim Director, says they use Facebook, where they have around 170 fans, for spreading news about press events (including photos) and about media coverage for their titles. They use Twitter very differently. Their thousand-strong Twitter community “does not like marketing or self-promotion,” she says. “So, what we are doing here is trying to actively engage in the communities that are relevant to us.” They use Twitter to “engage not only in talk about books and publishing but about our state and local community, environmental concerns, indigenous rights issues—anything that relates to what we publish.”
Brian Bowen, Publishing and Marketing Coordinator at Yale University Press, views their Twitter following, currently at 3,500 and growing steadily, as a vital part of their promotion. He has been able to track which posts attract the most clicks, and has found that “the 140-character format allows would-be book buyers to stumble upon our content in the process of their normal web browsing.”
Most staff at member presses believe social networking sites should primarily be used to communicate with media and consumers, and not for direct sales, though I was pleased when on a recent post linking to a Q&A with the author of a recent book, one of our fans commented: “ I have been seduced by social marketing and have ordered the book.”
Rebecca Ford, blog editor and voice of Oxford University Press tweets, uses Twitter to build relationships and communicate with journalists about Oxford titles. They currently have around 1,300 followers. “It’s important to be accepted by the community,” she said. “You have to participate in the community, not just provide information. It is worth it if you want to invest the time to get into the community.” She has experimented with give-aways, promoting the original content on their incredibly successful blog, and linking to openly available content from Twitter. She also promotes author participation on Twitter, encouraging authors to talk with each other and collaborate.
The key to keeping people interested in your content is involving them in the discussion and paying attention to their issues and concerns. “Twitter allows us to communicate both directly and indirectly with readers and tweeters who do or might enjoy Yale books,” says Bowen. “I’ve used the @reply feature to respond to readers’ questions related to our books. Both help to expand our readership and create an online personality for the press.”
While they routinely receive comments on their posts such as “great article,” and “I really want to buy that book,” the most gratifying response Arizona received on their Facebook page centered on a post they did about the press celebrating its 50th anniversary. A local journalist saw the post and emailed Conrad saying she would like to do a story for a local weekly. “It turned into a cover story including interviews with multiple staffers and authors,” Conrad said. “We got great coverage without ever making the pitch.”
Arizona has had many fruitful interactions on Twitter as well. “We discovered a local blog that then publicized a promotion we had going on. I helped a customer find one of our books she thought was out of print. We discovered a specialty account we’d never heard of and donated some hurt books for a fundraising effort they had going on. In general, I would say it’s a lot like being at BEA or a book festival: you never know what good thing will come of it.” Conrad added that they have, “been exposed to more publishing news than you could ever find in the mainstream media.”
It is doubtful that social media will replace traditional publicity and marketing efforts. Rather, they enhance what we are already doing and afford us more direct communication with our audience, a crucial aspect that is occasionally lacking in more traditional efforts. So many of us get our news via social media that it is only logical that university presses want to participate in this rapidly growing phenomenon.
Most university presses use social media to discuss what is happening in their community and the publishing world as well as what is going on with particular books and authors. At MIT, we have found it very useful to follow others, including colleagues at peer presses and trade houses, journalists, authors, and other organizations and individuals that are relevant to our list. Editors are using social networking to attract authors. Publicists can quickly scan Twitter for alerts when book review editors resign or contribute to the buzz about a particular topic or title, and authors can keep the press and their followers interested in what they are doing to promote their new book. The possibilities are endless.
Earlier this summer, AAUP was very pleased to announce a new membership benefit under an agreement with iPublishCentral, a self-service e-content platform from Impelsys. Member presses have a long commitment to serving the needs of scholars across every field of study. As scholars move to online practices as heterogeneous as their disciplines, AAUP is pursuing new benefit programs that will ease the process of experimenting with and adopting the right e-publishing solutions for scholarly presses.
The iPublishCentral services range from book-marketing widgets to direct e-book sales to consumers. These flexible service menus offer a broad range of ways for content to be discovered by and delivered to readers. The new AAUP-Impelsys program provides discounted monthly iPublishCentral fees to our members. In addition to the negotiated discount scale, Impelsys is offering AAUP members a special inaugural deal: waived fees for the first 12 months of contracts signed by June 2010.
The MIT Press, a cutting-edge adopter of several electronic publishing solutions, chose iPublishCentral to power their direct-to-consumer e-books store. E-books at the MIT Press currently offers approximately 450 titles from all of the Press’s publication fields and categories (trade, monographs, illustrated, and text.) Gita Manaktala, MIT’s Editorial Director, reports that they have seen a broad range of interest across all of these fields and categories.
MIT uses iPublishPortal to sell both perpetual access and time-limited e-books—a “rental” model the Press has just recently rolled out. MIT launched the e-books store in March 2009 with an intended audience of individual consumers. The biggest surprise, Manaktala says, has been the interest from libraries in purchasing single-title e-books through the site. Increasing reliance on patron requests to drive e-book acquisitions could be a factor in this library market, where turning to the press directly may be faster and easier than sourcing the title through aggregators.
MIT Press continues to work on the site’s features, layouts, and e-book offerings, and has yet to undertake a major marketing push for their e-book store. Throughout the process of building and tinkering with the new site, Manaktala says Impelsys has been “really responsive and good to work with. Their team is sophisticated and helpful, and interested in making this a success.”
In July and August, Impelsys hosted four webinars to introduce their services and the new AAUP benefit program to member publishers. More than 20 AAUP members attended these online sessions and have been favorably impressed with what they have seen. The iPublishWidget capability allows for branded, dynamic marketing across web sites, social networks, and blogs. iPublishView-Inside, with fully-searchable text and publisher controls on browsing, is an additional tool for providing what numerous e-publishing experiments have shown in recent years: online content that breeds both interest and sales. Sameer Shariff, CEO of Impelsys. believes that this is a particularly important tool for scholarly publishers to reach readers across the globe: “Increasingly discriminating readers will access sample pages and make quick, convenient purchases from anywhere in the world, further strengthening the financial position of university presses.”
Web demos can be arranged for any AAUP member that is curious about these services. Impelsys will also be attending the Frankfurt Book fair, where interested presses can arrange a direct meeting. Use the online registration form or contact Ray Alba to set up a Frankfurt meeting or with other questions about Impelsys services. AAUP members can learn more about the AAUP-Impelsys program and pricing scale through the members web site [password required]. Impelsys also offers an online “Learning Center” for press staff to delve deeper into the functionality available.
To talk about AAUP’s current e-publishing programs with Impelsys and Tizra, or suggest new program ideas, members are invited to contact Brenna McLaughlin at bmclaughlin@aaupnet.org.
By Colleen Lanick, Publicity Manager, MIT Press
The news that the Los Angeles Times Book Review, after more than thirty years, would cease publication in its freestanding format and merge with the opinion section of the newspaper made headlines from Galley Cat to an interview with former book review editor, Steve Wasserman, on the NewsHour. This is not shocking news to anyone who has been following trends with book review sections lately. It just seems like the latest in a growing list of newspapers shrinking coverage for books. In recent years, the Boston Globe’s book section was cut in half and folded into the “Ideas” section; the San Francisco Chronicle’s book section was cut, but after public outcry from their readers, restored, though in a slight four-page edition; and the Chicago Tribune’s book section was moved from Sunday to Saturday, the day of the week with the lowest circulation.
Now just a year after the highly publicized and protested news that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had eliminated its book review editor, Theresa Weaver, the Hartford Courant has laid off its book editor, Carole Goldberg, and major cuts were made at both the Raleigh News & Oberver and Newark Star-Ledger. Chris Watson was abruptly let go from the Santa Cruz Sentinel (but was then given the opportunity to continue writing two weekly columns on books, with less column space and only on a contract basis). And Marie Arana, long-time book editor at the Washington Post Book World, one of the last freestanding book sections in the country, will take a buy-out at the end of the year. The future of that section also seems unstable.
It’s clear that this recent list of cuts and restructuring is not going to end soon. Because space is so limited, it’s become more difficult for publicists to count on securing coverage for university press titles in many of the traditional venues we counted on for so many years. Reporters I talk to and the editors I meet with who still have book sections remain very interested in MIT’s titles and are always looking for interesting and timely books and authors to feature on their pages. But vying for space on these pages has become very competitive and editors simply cannot cover all of the titles they would like to cover given their space restrictions. We now have the challenge of looking for alternative places for getting attention for our titles. “While it is true the review sections in many print media have either evaporated or shrunk, the internet provides a vast wealth of opportunity to publicize our authors’ ideas,” Christian Purdy, Publicity Director at Oxford University Press, commented on the situation. “Also, many traditional print publications are becoming much savvier with their online presence and with a growing readership for many loyal readers. This too can be new fertile ground for review attention.” The Boston Globe has a wonderful blog (Brainiac), as do the New York Times Book Review (Paper Cuts) and the Los Angeles Times Book Review (Jacket Copy)—just to name a few. All of these blogs seem to be thriving and even growing with interesting content and large readerships.
To make up for the decreasing review coverage, more and more publicists and authors are looking to online sources and broadening the focus of pitches to newspapers and magazines beyond just contacting the book review editor. Ranjit Arab, Publicity Manager at the University Press of Kansas, says they’ve seen the writing on the wall for some time now. “We’ve really made a concerted effort over the last few years to find ways of offsetting dwindling review space,” he said. “That has meant getting more coverage off the book pages, encouraging authors to contribute op-ed pieces, and targeting any number of high-profile blogs and Web sites—all of which can impact a book’s success just as much as a review in a mid-major newspaper.” At Princeton, this dip in both major and second-tier newspaper coverage has also sent their publicists and authors to the internet as well and is allowing them to be even more creative on with their pitches, according to Andrew DeSio, Princeton’s Publicity Director. “Places such as TruthDig and Bookslut are great for general book coverage, but also more targeted blogs such as Marginal Revolution, Brad DeLong, Dani Rodrik, and Econlog are great for our economics books and Kaus Files, Bloggingheads.tv, Daily Kos, and Instapundit” for political authors, DeSio said. “Finding targeted, renowned, and influential blogs/websites is indeed the way of the future. Also, we’ve been pitching for more off-the-book page coverage at the newspapers, as book reviews aren’t the only places that feature books. Op-eds have also been very effective at creating awareness of an author or book.”
One could argue that it is the newspapers themselves that are in such peril and it’s not the death of the book business. It is also important to notice that some book sections are actually expanding their sections. The Wall Street Journal has expanded its daily book coverage and given it more prominent placement in the paper, and the Austin American Statesman has a new-ish regular feature dedicated to university press books. Online, NPR has also just launched a regular book review feature on its website. Cleary this is not the norm, but it’s important to note that there are still some thriving book sections—both online and off.
Some still view a review in the print version of a newspaper as more authoritative than a blog post or online only review, but I think this perception is slowly changing as websites are becoming more relevant and exciting content is being posted online. I doubt that the thrill of a call confirming a pending review in the New York Times Book Review will cause publicists to simply shrug rather than do run down the hall screaming with delight, but it’s time to stop complaining and to look in a new direction, while continuing to engage with the reporters and editors we’ve been working with in the past. “Personally, I find this media proliferation exciting,” says Arab. “It is shaking up the old model, taking away influence from a few traditional sources and putting it in the hands of some new players, so it’s not a matter of publicity outlets disappearing—they’re simply reemerging in other forms. As long as we continue to publish timely and interesting books, we shouldn’t have any trouble attracting the outlets that reach our intended audiences.”
As the torch is ignited to begin the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China’s controversial policies have drawn interest in the country beyond its role as host of the games. And the riots in Lhasa earlier this year made Tibet’s complicated relationship with China another flashpoint in the news. In an effort to help readers educate themselves about China’s history, culture, and role on the international stage, as well as Tibet’s own history with the regional power, the Association of American University Presses has published a bibliography of essential scholarship through its Books for Understanding public web site. These comprehensive scholarly bibliographies give
journalists and researchers a broader and deeper understanding of what
lies behind the headlines.
View the China list at http://aaupnet.org/news/bfu/china/list.html
View the Tibet list at http://aaupnet.org/news/bfu/tibet/list.html
Books for Understanding: http://booksforunderstanding.org
By Barbara Kline Pope
Executive Director, National Academies Press
Originally published in the Exchange, Summer 2003. Look for an article about NAP’s follow-up study of their digital publishing model in the Winter 2008 Exchange.
The National Academies Press (NAP) has been a leader in the electronic book publishing industry since launching its web site (www.nap.edu) in 1994. With annual sales revenue from all distribution channels of more than $7 million, NAP is one of the larger mid-size publishers within the university press community. NAP is the publisher for the National Academies: National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council. The Press’s dual mission is to disseminate the works of the National Academies to the greatest possible extent while fully supporting the cost of its own operation without subsidy from its parent institution.
NAP posts the text of all of its titles on the web in page-by-page image format free for anyone to browse, search, and read. A couple of years ago, it became clear that many within the leadership of the National Academies felt that NAP should begin giving away PDF versions of their books in order to enhance the dissemination mission. The bulk of this group hypothesized that NAP would not suffer financially from this action. However, others worried about the fiscal viability of this new model, postulating that posting free PDFs might erode a significant amount of revenue from print sales. Neither side had any data to support its views.
It was at this juncture that NAP decided that measuring customer behavior toward electronic content was of utmost importance to the future. The Press also felt that a serious study of these issues might help other scholarly publishers more efficiently find their way through the maze of options for presenting books to their readers. So, NAP, in conjunction with the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, set forth a successful proposal for a study of potential digital publishing business models to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The study focused on four research objectives: (1) to compare NAP’s offline and online customers on attitudes and behavior toward electronic content, (2) to measure the effectiveness of free online browsing and its impact on the purchase of printed and electronic formats, (3) to determine the optimal design and pricing of NAP’s e-content (specifically the PDF format), and (4) to study the demand for unbundled e-content (delivering electronic chapters of books). The study used a mix of survey-based descriptive research and experiment-based causal research in order to answer the research questions.
A unique online experiment that allowed NAP to measure actual purchase behavior rather than only gather purchase intentions via surveys formed the core of the research undertaken. During two months of intensive data gathering, customers were given experimental treatments as they interacted with NAP’s web site. For example, if a customer came to the site and placed a printed book in their shopping cart, they were presented with a pop-up box that explained that the particular book in question was available in PDF format. They then had the choice of sticking with their printed book, exchanging it for a PDF, or taking both versions. The prices of PDFs were randomized across the entire 500 books in the experiment from 0%-110% of the printed price. In our example, let’s say that the price of the printed book was $40 and the PDF was randomly assigned a zero price. If the customer jettisoned their printed book for a PDF, it was logged as a $40 loss.
In another segment of the experiment, NAP measured potential market expansion. If a customer was only browsing through the free content and then decided to purchase a PDF, that was logged as additional revenue. After the customers completed the experimental section of their Web experience, they were asked to complete a survey designed to get at why they did or did not purchase a PDF, about their perceptions of quality the of the PDF vs. print, and demographics.
The study illuminated the continued strength of demand for printed books. Even when customers were offered a PDF for free, more than half opted to pay for the printed book instead. On the other hand, slightly less than half took the free PDF rather than purchasing a book—behavior that could mean great losses in print revenue.
Comparing customers who order online with those who purchase books offline, the study revealed, not surprisingly, that NAP’s online customers are much more enthusiastic about e-content than customers who typically order via offline methods. Offline customers generally have poorer perceptions of the quality of e-content and most likely will need more experience with high-quality online content to change their perceptions.
Among online customers, the study showed that there exist specific segments of customers, some with strong preferences for print and some with equally strong predilection for PDF format. Surprisingly, the research showed that there is a segment of customers who are willing to pay a premium for access to downloadable and printable digital content.
In general, however, the NAP results indicate that customers are less willing to pay for e-content than for print—and they believe that PDFs should be cheaper than print. The study also illustrates that, as customers interact with e-content more—in terms of browsing and downloading content, and sampling PDFs—they are more likely to improve their perceptions of PDF and might be more likely to buy e-content.
The findings also indicate that unbundling content (selling books by the chapter) can result in higher market expansion than offering only the entire book. But, a strategy of bundling the PDF with print can fill demand for customers who view PDF and print as complements rather than direct substitutes. Capitalizing on these groups with attractive pricing strategies can help to mitigate losses. NAP’s customers tend to be quite price-inelastic in regard to chapter prices as compared to full PDF prices in the ranges of prices studied. In the case of the full PDF, once the assigned price was higher than zero, the study showed that demand did not change dramatically with price variations. NAP’s study also demonstrated that Internet speed has an impact on the purchase of the PDF format, but only in the case of the full PDF.
Overall, results suggested that the time is ripe for NAP and perhaps other scholarly book publishers to begin selling PDF format e-content to take advantage of customers’ demand for digital books. The National Academies Press has already begun.
The results and the full report from this study are available online at: http://aaupnet.org/resources/mellon/nap/index.html
A New Form of Good, Old-Fashioned, Word-of-Mouth Publicity
by Colleen Lanick
Publicity Manager, MIT Press
Since September 2001, the focus of the media and public on matters of lifestyle, personal finance, and entertainment has clearly broadened to include more substantive questions of war, peace, culture, religion, security, and the role of the United States on the world stage. It has been widely recognized that in such an environment, scholarly books are more welcome than ever. This message has not been lost on trade publishers, who in the years since 9/11 have strikingly beefed up their lists. One consequence of this otherwise positive change of focus is that it has once again become difficult for scholarly presses to compete for their share of media attention. Yet the books we publish remain highly relevant, offering depth and perspective on matters of both topical and transcendent interest.
The challenge for marketing departments, many with shrinking budgets, is to figure out how to get the word out about our titles and authors. As more and more people are getting their news and information on the internet and as the blogosphere is taking on an increasingly important role as a setting for public discourse, the most logical (and economical) way to do this might just be through the blog. At MIT, we’ve long been tracking the hits of our titles on some of a wide variety of blogs, finding that they are really paying attention to our titles and engaging in lively discussions about our books. It just seemed logical to for us to start our own blog. Over the past few months, Oxford University Press, the MIT Press, Yale University Press, and the University of Chicago Press have all launched blogs as a way to post information about authors and titles and place university press books, journals, and authors in the context of the news of the day.
Blogs are relatively easy to set up. Oxford, Yale, and MIT are currently using Typepad, a blog service that provides hosting and pre-designed templates for a nominal fee, allowing a blogger to get up and running in minutes. Presses with more IT infrastructure can design their own sites by running blogging software on their own server, as Chicago is doing. They are using software called Movable Type and hosting the blog on their own server. “We have a server that is just running blogs. We wanted to have the capability to run multiple blogs, to track traffic, and we wanted to keep our content secure,” said Dean Blobaum, Electronic Marketing Manager, Books Division, University of Chicago Press.
And the content really seems to come naturally—it’s often surprisingly easy to find links to books and authors to post comments on every day (or thereabouts). “From a promotions and publicity standpoint, we couldn’t have started a blog soon enough.” said Daniel Lee, Internet Marketing Manager at Yale. “It allows us to reinforce frontlist titles that we’re really trying to push as well as shed some much wanted light on backlist items that ordinarily wouldn’t get any attention.” At MIT, we are experimenting with all sorts of content on our blog. We are using the blog to increase the momentum of media and review coverage we receive for our titles, to highlight upcoming events and exhibits relevant to our titles, to feature excerpts from our titles, and to post interviews with and original content by our authors about current issues. We’re also experimenting with a podcasting feature, which will allow us to post readings by our authors and Q&As and debates about our titles. Instead of waiting for reporters to find our titles or discover our authors as experts on a particular topic, we can help them along by providing the groundwork for a discussion of how what MIT Press publishes relates to the world around us. Our hope is that this will increase the visibility of our titles and promote discussion of the important topics and issues we publish.
A Boston-area political blog praised the MIT PressLog as a “wonderful nerdy-arty mix… there’s one part art and design; one part technology and techno-cultural theoretical work; and one part politics.” The post went on to discuss a post we had done about one of our backlist titles. This is exactly what we are hoping our blog will do. “It’s a chance for us to make connections between MIT Press books and stories in the news,” according to MIT Press Marketing Director Gita Manaktala. “These connections are real and illuminating, but in the past, we would have had to wait for reporters, reviewers, or editorial writers to make them.” Matthew Sollars, Product Manager at Oxford University Press, sees their blog as a unique opportunity to provide content that isn’t out there already. “It’s what will really differentiate us from the other content that’s available on the web,” he said. Oxford has been posting original content by their authors about hot news topics, conducting Q&As with their authors, and will be hosting live chats and debates surrounding their titles. Sollars said he plans to host a debate on the blog this summer with Saul Cornell about his forthcoming book about gun control. He hopes to get a dialogue going with both pro- and anti-gun-control writers and bloggers.
Chicago is doing something a bit different with their blog. Previously, they had been creating electronic press releases and pulling quotes from reviews for their titles on their web site but now will be posting both on their blog According to Blobaum, some of this is just handling content more effectively as the blog categorizes and archives itself, which will hopefully garner more search engine hits. “But of course we also want to create some original and interesting posts that tie the news to our book, that highlight what our authors are doing, and probably we’ll have the occasional author essay/op-ed piece,” Blobaum says of The Chicago Blog. “We hope that bloggers (and maybe some print journalists) will visit our blog or subscribe to the RSS or Atom Feed and find something useful or interesting from time to time.”
Overall, there seems to be enthusiasm throughout each press for the blog—in marketing, sales, and editorial. In addition to traditional publicity and marketing related news posts, editors can comment on trends in their specific fields and we’ve found that many of our authors are more than happy to jump on board to provide original content for their books. The blog can help to keep everyone at the press involved in the books long after their publication and it is the perfect solution for authors who want to actively participate in the marketing of their book. One of the challenges is that our lists are so diverse—many readers are only interested in just one portion of our list. Sollars mentioned that RSS feeds should be able to help readers focus on information they are most interested in and weed out what they’re not. (For a more detailed discussion of RSS feeds, please see “RSS: The Next Big Thing?” in the Fall 2005 Exchange)
“It only takes one good link to drive sales up markedly. It’s hard not to take advantage of a tool like this. It’s free promotion on the fly. Just having our book titles pop up more in search engines, other people’s blogs, news articles, etc., generates a lot more excitement about what we are doing,” Lee said of the Yale blog. Of course, the blog does not replace other marketing and publicity efforts, but it really is an exciting and versatile new tool that can allow us to reinforce what we are already doing, think about our titles in a creative way, provide original and innovative content to drive readers to our books, and introduce people to titles—that they might not normally have had exposure to—in a lively and engaging way.
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2006 Exchange.
Or, Using Publisher Alley and Neilsen BookScan Every Day Soon after joining NYU Press, I subscribed to the sales databases Publisher Alley and Neilsen BookScan as a way to help me better perform my job. The information that both these systems provide has helped me on various levels—from analyzing proposals for weekly acquisitions meetings, to projecting sales for forthcoming books, to determining reprint decisions. I find these services extremely useful and will briefly go though the different functions they provide.
by Fredric Nachbaur
Marketing & Sales Director, NYU Press
As the marketing and sales director, I am responsible for reading and reviewing the packet of proposals before our weekly acquisitions meeting. In preparation for the discussion, I look at the books previously written by the authors and editors to get a sense of how well their books have sold. I know that different subjects sell at different levels but having an author with a solid track record certainly helps when you are pitching a book to a buyer. It’s also good to know when a book hasn’t sold well. I look at Pub Alley for a picture of the library market and at BookScan to see the bookstore market.
After reviewing the authors’ and editors’ own books, I look at the comparable titles that the editors have listed on the proposals.. Although it is important to recognize other factors that go into a particular book’s sales background such as author, publisher, price and discount, it is really useful to know how a competitive book has performed. A big-name author publishing with a big trade house can’t be compared to a first-time author at a university press, so I try to make comparisons with like titles published at similar houses. I know that NYU often competes with Duke or Minnesota in certain subjects, so looking at sales figures from books by these presses is valuable.
I bring all of this information into the acquisitions meeting and it becomes a good source for setting price ranges and print runs, allowing us to make informed decisions rather than basing them solely on guess work. Before the days of sales databases, we had to rely on our friends at other houses to look up sales—it’s nice to type in a password and get the information in seconds. Though I’ve told colleagues that I can show them how to look up information too, they haven’t taken me up on the offer, and I secretly enjoy being the only one who can access the information.
When the press is low on stock on a new release, usually a general interest title, we don’t want to lose momentum and be left without stock. Before we push the button for a reprint, though, I review stock levels at the chains and wholesalers to determine if there is too much stock in the marketplace that might be returned. PubAlley and BookScan, particularly the B&N BookScan feed, are invaluable resources for this information. Without these numbers, we could make disastrous decisions. Of course, due to demands from other channels, I sometimes need to reprint even though B&N and Borders may have a ton of books. However, I may not reprint as much knowing that I’ll get 50% or more back from them months later, just enough to supply other key channels such as Amazon and core independents.
Before presenting to my buyer at Baker & Taylor, I need to do a comparison sales report. In the past, I would do a lot of research beforehand and go to my appointment an hour or more early to look up sales data for books related to the frontlist being presented that day. Needless to say, this was not a fun exercise. Pub Alley has made this task quite easy and streamlined and I am thrilled that I can run these reports with so much less stress. I recently got a refresher training lesson and was still amazed at how easy it is.
Additional data that Pub Alley provides is pricing and models for comparable books. For instance if I want to look at how other presses publish cloth religion monographs, I can do so with little hassle by logging onto Pub Alley. This is great data to have for analyzing a subject and determining print runs.
These are brief summaries of how I use Pub Alley and BookScan. I must emphasize that both systems have become part of my daily work routine. In addition to logging into the NYU Press sales and marketing databases, I log onto Pub Alley and BookScan every morning. While I feel a bit like the Wizard of Oz voluntarily lifting the curtain to share the source of my all-seeing book-market knowledge, I would certainly encourage others to take advantage of the information resources that these services make available to us. Not simply marketing and sales departments, but the whole press may benefit from the increased certainty and efficiency this information contributes to publishing decisions.