I spoke at the BC Library Conference on Friday about marketing.

F14 Readers’ Advisory Outside the Box: Marketing Experts Reveal Strategies on Promoting Books and Reading

Organized by the BCLA Readers’ Advisory Interest Group, this panel of experts from outside the world of libraries will weigh in on best practices and innovative ideas for marketing books and reading. These experts from local marketing, publishing and art curating disciplines will discuss “out-of-the-box” marketing strategies, and how they can be applied in a library setting to appeal to customers and potential customers. The panellists will cover digital, word-of-mouth, and display/merchandising strategies. Generously sponsored by Library Bound.

My panelists included Alison Cairns, an online communications and marketing expert, and Lorna Brown, a Vancouver-based artist, curator and writer whose recent projects include Digital Natives, a public artwork commissioned by the City of Vancouver.

My approach to the question of what marketing and promotion lessons librarians can learn from publishers was to look at Harry Potter, not as the smash hit it became but about 3 of the factors in place that contributed to that success.

Lorna spoke second about Digital Natives, the history of the project and the outputs (the sign at Burrard St Bridge, the website, the symposium and the media coverage).

Alison then presented 3 marketing case studies from her time at Douglas & McIntyre. As the online marketing manager for D&M, her work always dovetailed with traditional marketing in order to optimize the campaigns for success. Her case studies highlighted three different aspects: marketing the press, marketing a book, and marketing an author.

Marketing the Press

Alison shared details of the marketing planning for D&M's 40th Anniversary. They chose some D&M classics to digitize and make available on Kobo readers as a way to communicate the strengths of their past and their initiatives moving forward. They also produced some short videos with co-founder Scott McIntyre. Some were informative, and some were just for the fun of it, like the one below.

Marketing a Book

Alison used the example of a collection of short stories from a new author, which is always a difficult marketing task because short stories are notoriously hard to sell and even moreso when from a new, unheard of author. In this case study, they selected one of the short stories to publish as an ebook single for $0.99. The single was used as a promotional tool to help gain the author and the book more exposure.

Marketing an Author

John Furlong was the leader behind the team that organized and delivered the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paraympic Winter Games. When D&M published Furlong's book Patriot Hearts, they knew they had a big name author with a huge fan following, in particular 2010 Olympic voluteers who would do anything to help John. As part of the launch plan, D&M organized a flash mob on the transit system. Olympic volunteers donned their blue jackets, stormed a particular transit station and all pulled out copies of the book. They read the book in the station and then all boarded the train. Translink even got involved and ensured that the train car named in Furlong's honour was on the tracks and in the station during the media scrum with John.

Thanks to our moderator Heidi Schiller and to the BCLC for inviting me to present.