10,594
to “He’s Here” for a week of 20-second television ads from publication day. On radio, the team ran a national campaign with radio mogul Global, including live reads from DJs the weekend before launch, announcing that listeners could hear an audio extract on Heart before anyone else. The campaign continued throughout publication week, replaying parts of the extract with a call to action to buy the book. The Penguin Random House audio team supported this regionally, with audiobook ads on Hits Radio in Manchester, Radio Cit in Liverpool and Free Radio in Birmingham, all areas which, the team says, over-index in terms of audiobook listener numbers. The advertising ran for two weeks, and Audible supported the title with spend on its own social media channels. During these weeks the team ran four-sheet adverts with National Rail 12-sheet advertising with London Underground.
Copies sold of Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women in its first fortnight on sale
CAROLINE SANDERSON IN MAY
LISA TADDEO WAS INTERVIEWED BY THE BOOKSELLER’S
UNDERGROUND ADVERTISING
NATIONAL RAIL AND
On social media, Bush and her team reached out to key romance bloggers and “bookstagrammers” on Instagram, with chocolate-filled Valentine’s Day packages, while Ridley’s team invested in Facebook and Instagram adver- tising and created a host of assets, including countdown videos, lifestle images, character-led videos, adaptations of the outdoor creative and audio extracts. Event and stunt activit was organised around the
book’s seting, with a competition to win a night in a hotel in Chelsea, including £100 towards room service and delivery of the book to the winner’s hotel room at midnight on publication day. The competition garnered 5,219 entries. MyHotel in Chelsea then hosted Cornerstone’s Mister Monday superfan sleepover, complete with share- able elements to engage influencers. The event culminated with a special delivery of the book as the embargo liſted, kicking off a midnight tweetathon and leading to positive reviews on blogs and Amazon. On publication day, Cornerstone guerilla- dropped a The Mister-branded piano in Sloane Square, where a professional female pianist entertained commuters on their way
to work. They held the UK launch event at Chelsea Town Hall, securing romantic novelist Veronica Henry as an interviewer to reinforce the messaging. Asked if the team reached their objectives, Ridley said:
“We were aiming high—and we got there. There was a real sense of excitement and anticipation for a new book by E L James, and seeing it reach the top of the bestseller lists was brilliant.”
E L James’ The Mister was published by Arrow (9781787463608) on 16th April, priced £7.99.
TheBookseller.com
Campaign Focus Three’s the magic number for Bloomsbury as Taddeo hits the top
W
hile recommendations are a key element of any book’s success, few titles have enjoyed the
wildfire word-of-mouth of Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women. By focusing on what Bloomsbury marketing manager for non- fiction Hannah Paget and head of publicity for non-fiction Emma Bal called the “special high/low nature of the book”, they have driven Three Women to the top of the non- fiction charts. The team knew from acquisition that
Taddeo’s writing would speak for itself, but they also knew it was not a given that the début non-fiction title would be the phenomenon they felt it should be. The beauty of the book was its capacity to be high-end and literary while also getting deep into the worlds of sex, adultery, lust and desire. They had to avoid being pigeonholed: the book couldn’t be seen as just about sex, or American women, or only for female readers. They needed an approach that was not overly prescriptive; one that would enable media, industry, booksellers and other readers’ responses to lead the campaign. “We treated everyone like potential
readers,” said Bal. This meant getting the book into as many hands as possible, to help cement their claim that it would be one of the the most talked-about books of the year. Paget created a simple first proof run,
with a Dave Eggers quote saying the book would be “breathlessly debated”. The confi- dent, pared-back design asserted Three Women’s non-fiction credentials in a way that did not limit potential readership, and garnered attention from traditional media. The second proof run, complete with cover
art, helped it attract more mainstream coverage. The team secured media slots across literary periodicals and broadsheets, as well as tabloids and women’s and men’s magazines. Comments compared Taddeo to everyone from Jilly Cooper to Truman Capote.
Readers first The team combined this with its reader-led approach: all Bloomsbury marketers and publicists gave a proof to three friends in publishing, and soon comments from the industry and other early readers flowed in. They sent hand-written notes to booksellers, several of whom, along with journalists, got to meet the author months before publication. This early work led to shops such as Foyles supporting in a big way, with an exclusive Foyles edition and sold out pre-publication event. Marketing and publicity worked in
tandem, using reader reviews on paid-for and organic social media to amplify the traditional coverage. Assets used on social media drove customers to a landing page with a book extract, enabling readers with- out proofs to experience Taddeo’s writing and move the conversation forward. Both Paget and Bal cite a close working
relationship with publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum as hugely important to Three Women’s success. The three held weekly meetings from November 2018 onwards to go over every detail of the campaign. “Working so closely as a team has been so important,” Bal said. With more than 2,000 pre-orders, 6,000-plus hard- backs sold in the first week, and a Sunday Times number one slot, this was clearly a winning strategy.
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