Publicity Campaign of the Year
WINNER LOUISE COURT AND LUCIE CUTHBERTSON-TWIGGS, HARVILL SECKER
With an unknown author and a hard-to-categorise plot, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar could very easily have sunk without trace in 2018. But a stunningly creative and tenacious publicity campaign from Louise Court and Lucie Cuthbertson-Twiggs instead made it the top-selling literary fiction hardback début of the year. This was a campaign in which the publicists’ love of the book shone
through. They started by championing the novel in-house, winning sign-off on an afternoon off for Vintage employees to read it. Next came a relentless pursuit of retailer support, with more than 1,000 proofs dropped, author visits to more than 50 shops and a special walking tour of Georgian London for 30 booksellers. Assiduous courting of Waterstones in particular made many of its staff early adopters of the book. Around publication, the scale of reviews, interviews and feature
coverage far exceeded what a literary début could expect. The publicists then made the very most of a personable and confident author, taking her to more than 30 public events including literary festivals and bookshop and library appearances. Digital activity including courting of influential bloggers, vloggers and Instagrammers helped too, as did partnerships with brands including Mermaid Gin, the Groucho Club and Toast. By the end of 2018, sales of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock had hit
around 50,000 in all formats, and Vintage’s paperback edition had been teed up for even bigger numbers in 2019. “Publicising a new author can be like pushing water uphill, but this was a total masterclass... Louise and Lucie called all the shots and thought everything through brilliantly,” said the judges. “They used the author to the max and it’s obviously a real passion project—they put their heart and soul into it.”
Relentless publicity campaign that got the book far and wide to media and readers
Excellent promotion of the author in events, media coverage and retail activity
Achieved exceptional sales for a hardback literary début
SHORTLIST
AMELIA FAIRNEY AND POPPY NORTH, VIKING Instrumental in perhaps the top publishing event of the year in Michelle Obama’s Becoming, responding to logistical challenges to deliver huge media coverage and events
SOPHIE CALDER AND MEGAN CARVER, HARPERCOLLINS Shortlisted for their role in the huge success of BOSH!, winner of the Marketing Strategy of the Year award
MAURA WILDING AND HARRIET VENN, PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S Generated wide exposure for Feminists
THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS WINNERS 2019
Don’t Wear Pink (and Other Lies) and used a social media storm about the shutdown of its Topshop pop-up to great effect
MARIA GARBUTT-LUCERO, FABER & FABER Created a pre-publication buzz among retailers to become crucial in the success of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the Nibbies’ Book of the Year
For more than 50 years the Publishers’ Publicity Circle has ena-
HANNAH CORBETT, PAN MACMILLAN Shortlisted for superb work on The Secret Barrister, turning the anonymity of the author to her advantage and fanning out interest from legal circles to the mainstream
bled all book publicists from publishing houses and freelance PR agencies to gather and share information on a regular basis.
All campaigns on the shortlist are already winners at the Publishers' Publicity Circle Awards
WITH THANKS TO: PUBLISHERS’ PUBLICITY CIRCLE
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