Starbucks is one of those companies the media loves to over-cover (consider, say, free wifi at the coffee shops, versus free wifi at McDonald’s) and today they announced yet another complicated promotional entertainment offering. Traditionally these initiatives are great for free media, and then tend to fizzle away after a couple of pops. (The roster includes: their dedicated book picks; CD racks; Oprah book club sales; their music label; Starbucks Entertainment; their film adventures; their audiobook promotion; and so on.)The announcement introduces the Starbucks Digital Network–kind of AOL from the early 90s, reinvented for today in partnership with Yahoo, providing […]
Marketing
Film Partner Will Help Promote Sparks’ New Novel, Well in Advance of Any Movie Version
The WSJ reports on a promotional twist for Nicholas Spark’s September release SAFE HAVEN. Film rights licensee Relatively Media will promote the book, even though they won’t have a film version ready until late next year at the earliest. Plans include ads in US and Entertainment Weekly as well as “creating a social community” around the work and working with publisher Grand Central on a joint Facebook page for the new novel. (Relativity’s Facebook community for their successful DEAR JOHN movie adaptation has over 2 million enrolled fans.) It’s in Relativity’s interest to nurture interest in the work, though the […]
Think of a Number (or Price) that Can Make Your eBook a Bestseller
While most big publishers have forsaken ebook giveaways as a business-effective way to establish new frontlist (with thanks to Chris Anderson for helping to prove the limits of FREE), price experimentation is gaining adherents as a way of highlighting new authors in a crowded marketplace while still driving at least some revenue. Crown has experimented with a promotional price window to highlight novelist (and former ad executive) John Verdon’s debut effort THINK OF A NUMBER, acquired at auction in a major three-book deal last September. For two weeks right after publication they offered the ebook edition at a digital list […]
Briefs: Gloomy UK Publishing Stats for 2010 Thus Far; Amazon Shares Upgraded; Half Price Books Posts Gains; and More
HarperCollins UK CEO Victoria Barnsley has warned the industry is not likely to return to pre-recession glory after figures released by Nielsen BookScan for the first 24 weeks of the year, revealed a fall in the total value of book sales of 5.7% and eight of the top 10 publishers saw a drop in sales in 2010: “Our business needs to change, regardless of whether there is a recession or not. The economic situation has merely hurried the process along . . . To be honest, I don’t anticipate the market ever returning to pre-recession levels in its current form.” […]
Online Reading
At noon today Stephenie Meyer‘s novella THE SHORT SECOND LIFE OF BREE TANNER will be readable online for free.Bree Tanner site The New Yorker has three stories from their new 20 under 40 issue–by Gary Shteyngart, Salvatore Scibona, and Rivka Galchen–available at open online links. And the editors of the magazine discuss their choices here. “What we have tried to do, in selecting the writers featured in this issue, is to offer a focussed look at the talent sprouting and blooming around us. These writers (stories by eight of them appear here; twelve more will follow, one at a time, […]
Buzz by the Numbers
As you consider this year’s “official” Buzz Panel books–and all the other titles clamoring for buzz on the show floor during BEA–we thought it would be interesting to take stock of the performance of last year’s selections. Bear in mind that part of the point of the panel is to shine a light on a broad selection of books of potential merit and audience appeal that might not be top-of-the list sure things. So absolute sales numbers are not the only measure of success. But by most yardsticks, nearly all of the books featured last year met with some kind […]