IN DEPTH
Opinion Pandemic publicity
Jenny Fry
Promoting new releases in the Covid era has been a challenge but, as evidenced by Matt Haig’s latest, the potential to reach a broad audience is huge
Matt provides the gloss E
an opportunit to embarrass myself internationally.” But having just read the new Elizabeth Day book, I channeled my inner brave person and signed up, joining the panel on “Atention in a Time of Distraction: Book Promotion During the Pandemic”.
In the first instance it was lovely to “meet” the likes of
Jenna Blum and Caroline Leavit, both New York Times bestsellers and now the founders of A Might Blaze, which gives authors whose book tours were Covid-cancelled an opportunit to promote their books to an online communit; and Gustavo Lembert, c.e.o. and founder of TAG Livros Literary Experiences, whose highly successful subscription service in Brazil continues to grow and is soon to launch internationally. As for my contribution, I guess I was there to give my take on the traditional publishing industry’s response. And as a representative of Canongate, when asked about relative success in a time of coronavirus, I had the good fortune of being able to mention some great examples. Clearly, Booker longlisting and shortlisting announce- ments are emotional roller-coasters for our industry, and by their nature leave more people disappointed than elated. But this year, the wonderful Maaza Mengiste and her equally wonderful The Shadow King got all of us at Canongate well and truly into the elated column. But if ever there was a year to wish for cherries on top of thickly iced cake, it was this one—and Mat Haig’s The Midnight Library is proving to be all of those things and more. We knew it had the potential to break out: a lovely,
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upliſting, deſtly craſted story; an established audience; and an awesome campaign. And we’re thrilled to say it did, debuting at number one in the Sunday Times bestseller lists, and riding high, in every format, ever since. Naturally I’m biased, but our deput marketing director Alice Shortland and publicit manager Lucy Zhou produced not one, but two brilliant campaigning strategies for Mat. Two because, as with so much pre-Covid work, most of it had to be parked upon lockdown. Which meant that Alice and Lucy had to come up with a pandemic-proof plan for geting this book the success it deserved. And they did just that. Working closely with Mat, whose dedication to his readers is something to behold, we grew and galvanised his fanbase, building that essen- tial word of mouth, securing more than 7,500 physical pre-orders across multiple retailers. And with coverage across the board, from the Sunday Times Magazine to Grazia; podcasts to blogs to radio, we were particularly proud when the novel was chosen as the
Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library has sold 41,413 units through Nielsen BookScan’s UK TCM at the time of writing. His top seller to date is Reasons to Stay Alive (343,163).
arlier this year, programmer Miriam Robinson was kind enough to think of me as someone who might give a presentation at The Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicit Conference. Accepting the invite went against all my anxious, introverted instincts. But when I realised I would be talking to my laptop, I did feel marginally beter. One of the consequences of that event was that I was then invited to do something similar for the Frankfurt Book Fair, to which I thought: “Great,
We knew the novel had the potential to break out: a lovely, uplifting, deftly crafted story; an established audience; and an awesome campaign
inaugural book club pick on BBC2’s brand new “Between the Covers”. Carefully interlinked with marketing, we combined targeted online advertising, partnerships with Jameela Jamil’s podcast and libraries nationwide, all alongside the constantly adapting, high-performing social media advertising.
As for events, Mat was able to “make” a whole host of them from his home, thanks to early innovator organisers such as At Home with 4 Indies, Tortoise and Guardian Live, as well as literary festivals. And without the usual logistical issues of location, accessibilit, affordabilit and having to find time in your life, we found a huge breadth of people atending who might not have other- wise. In fact, this almost limitless reach is one of this year’s more joyous discoveries. And this is just about the UK. Canongate is also working with Mat’s 25 other publishing partners around the world, constantly sharing information and a Dropbox full of edit- able assets. Working closely with Penguin Press US and HarperCollins Canada, which have both just published the book, it’s continuing the conversation online. And, for want of a beter word, success can be contagious. As a final thought, it might very well be that The Midnight Library has been as big a success because of this year’s incredible circumstances, not in spite of them. You need a huge amount of luck to get anywhere near captur- ing the zeitgeist and, fortuitously, Mat’s heart-on-sleeve, feel-good, life-affirming novel is a perfect antidote to much of this year’s gloom. If anyone’s feeling gloomy next year, it’ll be out in paperback, too.
Jenny Fry is Canongate’s commercial director. She will be speaking today (14th October) at the Frankfurt Digital Conference’s “Attention in a Time of Distraction: Book Promotion During the Pandemic” seminar at GMT 2.55 p.m. Matt Haig will be in conversation with Canongate publishing director Francis Bickmore during the Frankfurt BOOKFEST digital stream on 17th October at 9.30 p.m. BST.
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