PARTNER
DESCRIPTION from publishing houses and freelance PR agencies to gather and share information on a regular basis.
PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR
OVERVIEW The nine campaigns here are already winners at the awards, and now face off to be best of the best. A hectic news agenda and the cancellation of events conspired against these 14 publicists— timers on the shortlist— but they all found ways to adapt and make their books highly visible across the trade and the wider media too.
BETHANY CARTER Carter and Faber pitched While We Can’t Hug, a picture book by Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar, as a source of emotional support for socially distanced children. It used digi- tal animations, a BookTrust partnership and social media to generate 30,000-unit sales in the TCM.
EMMA DRAUDE, ANNABELLE WRIGHT, SARAH WRIGHT & THI DINH Draude and Wright of the Emma Draude PR agency teamed up with Penguin Press’ Wright and Dinh to take Caleb Femi’s poetry and photography collection Poor well beyond the literary community.
OLIVIA MEAD & CHLOE DAVIES Penguin General’s campaign for The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman lit the fire under the hottest release of 2020. Mead and Davies skil- fully positioned the author not just as a celebrity with a book, but a serious crime fiction author in it for the long-run.
GEORGINA MOORE Eight months of planning for Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (Tinder Press) by Midas PR’s Moore was upended by the pandemic. Within weeks Moore and O’Farrell had mastered digital publicity skills, with video content, blog tours and a Twitter party adding to a slew of reviews and interviews.
ANNA RIDLEY Penguin General’s Anna Ridley used Bernardine Evaristo’s 2019 Booker Prize triumph as a springboard for publicity in 2020. Video technology and a hard-working author combined to generate massive coverage, and made Girl, Woman, Other the seventh-biggest-selling book of the year.
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MAURA WILDING & ALEXANDRA LAYT Wilding and Layt ran a very effective campaign for My Life in Red and White by Arsène Wenger (Orion). It made good use of Wenger’s limited time, achieved nearly 100 pieces of prominent media coverage, and broadened the book’s appeal beyond Arsenal fans.
ALICE DEWING A translated and challenging Japanese novel was a tough sell in a crowded summer market, but Picador’s campaign for Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs generated extensive word of mouth before release. Proofs, endorsements and well-targeted media coverage amplified the book’s messages.
ALICE HERBERT Publicity for Susie Dent’s Word Perfect (John Murray Press) got off to a disastrous start when a print run based on old, error-strewn files had to be pulped. Dent and Alice Herbert responded with diplomacy and tongue-in-cheek humour, making the crisis a hook for media coverage.
JUDGES VERDICT
A HECTIC NEWS AGENDA AND THE CANCELLATION OF EVENTS CONSPIRED AGAINST THESE PUBLICISTS, BUT THEY ALL FOUND WAYS TO ADAPT
ELLA PATEL Ella Patel’s campaign sensitively wove Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy (Quercus) into conversations about racism and Black Lives Matter. It used Saad’s large Instagram following to build a buzz, and pitched the book as a practical solution to problems as well as a polemic.
BERNARDINE EVARISTO
WENT FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH LAST YEAR, AIDED BY ANNA RIDLEY
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